reasoning.
As she made the last entry in her plan of action, Alvirah looked at the clock: seven-thirty-time to close the notebook and turn off the microphone, she decided. Willy would be awake soon, and she wanted to have breakfast ready for him.
Then, sometime today, I have to sit down alone with Kate and go over these questions with her, she thought.
Suddenly another idea came to her, and she snapped the microphone on again. Since she had written that first article for the New York Globe about visiting Cypress Point Spa after winning the lottery, she and the editor there, Charley Evans, had become fast friends. He could get the lowdown on Vic and Linda Baker for her right away. “The little gray cells are really waking up,” she announced. “It’s time to get the Globe researchers to dig up the dirt on the Bakers. Dollars to donuts, this isn’t the first time that pair of phonies pulled a fast one.”
The 7:00 A.M. Mass at St. Clement’s usually had an attendance of about thirty people, mostly the older, retired parishioners. But now that it was the season of Advent, the number attending was at least double that. In his brief homily, Monsignor Ferris spoke about Advent as the season of waiting. “We are in the time when we anticipate the birth of the Savior,” he said. “We anticipate the moment in Bethlehem when Mary gazed for the first time at her infant Son.”
A faint sob from the congregation riveted his attention on the pew near the painting of Bishop Santori. The pretty young woman whom he had noticed earlier, standing across the street from the rectory, sat there. Her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders were shaking. I have got to make her talk to me, he thought, but then he saw her reach into her purse, put on dark glasses and slip down the aisle and out the door.
At nine-thirty, Kate Durkin began going through everything left in her late sister’s room. It would be a crying shame just to leave Bessie’s clothes hanging in the closet when so many people need something to wear, she decided.
The four-poster bed which for eight years Bessie had shared with Judge Aloysius Maher, and from which she had gone to her Maker, seemed somehow to stand in silent reproach as Kate took dresses and jackets from the closet. Some of the items she recognized as being at least twenty years old. Bessie was always telling me that there was no point in giving them away, because maybe I could use them someday, Kate thought. What she didn’t seem to realize is that I’d have had to grow five inches for any of them to fit. It’s a wonder she didn’t leave them to Linda Baker too, she thought bitterly.
The memory of yesterday’s sudden revelations, and the surprise will, made Kate’s eyes fill. As she impatiently brushed away a tear and glanced at Bessie’s desk, the typewriter caught her eye. It seemed to her that there was something she should remember, but what was it?
She did not have time to think about what could have triggered her subconscious, however; having heard a sound behind her, she turned to find Vic and Linda standing in the doorway.
“Oh, Kate,” Linda said sweetly. “I’m so glad you’re clearing Bessie’s things out of the room for us.”
The downstairs bell rang. “I’ll get it,” Vic Baker announced.
You’re not taking over yet, Kate said to herself as she quickly followed him down the stairs.
A moment later, Kate saw the welcome sight of Alvirah on the front steps and heard her ask, “Is Kate Durkin, the lady of the house, on these pristine premises?”
10
Lenny had gotten back to the apartment at midnight and tiptoed to his bedroom-mostly cleared of the clothing Lilly was mending-and gone to bed.
When he woke up at nine the next morning, he was surprised to hear the sound of voices in the other bedroom, then realized it was Saturday and Star had no school.
It also meant that Aunt Lilly probably was still in bed if she wasn’t at Mass. She never had been the same after a bad fall last summer. She tried to tell him she was fine, but he had overheard her telling a neighbor that the doctor thought a blackout had been caused by a small stroke. Whatever had caused it, he definitely had seen a big difference in Lilly since he last had been here in September.
He had told her that he’d been in Florida, working for a delivery company. She responded that she was happy to know he had a regular job, and that he shouldn’t worry about Stellina. Sure, I shouldn’t worry about Star, he thought. Aunt Lilly would be happy if I never showed up here again.
Well, part of what I told her was true, he thought as he reached for a cigarette. I did make deliveries. Deliveries of little packages that made people happy. But it was getting too risky down there, so he thought he would come back to New York, pick up some small-time action and get to know Star. I’m just a nice, concerned single father, living in a respectable building with an old aunt, he thought. And that’s good, because this way when Lilly closes her eyes for good, Star and I will at least know each other real well. Who knows? I might even be able to put her to work for me.
He thought over the situation as he puffed his cigarette down to the stub, ground it out in a tray with sewing supplies, then decided to light another one to settle his nerves before he faced Aunt Lilly.
Even when Star had still been an infant, and he would take her for an outing in her carriage, Lilly had been suspicious every time. Lenny smiled at the memory of all the goods he had been able to deliver, while people smiled and cooed at his beautiful baby. But when he got home, Lilly always peppered him with questions. “Where did you walk? Where did you take her? Her blankets smell of smoke. I’ll kill you if you took her to a bar.” She was always after him.
He knew, though, that he would have to be careful and not get Lilly all worried about the little girl. All he needed was to have his aunt get some crazy idea, like trying to trace Star’s mother, his supposed girlfriend who’d gone to California.
Through some of his connections he had managed to get a forged birth certificate for Star. The letter pinned to her blanket had said she was of Irish and Italian descent, which worked out fine. So I’m Italian and her mother was Irish, Lenny had decided, and told his source to fill out the mother’s name as Rose O’Grady. He had thought of the song about Rosie O’Grady, which he liked when he was younger. He remembered some Irish kid in his class used to sing it.
Lilly would have a hell of a job trying to trace a Rose O’Grady in California, Lenny thought-it’s a common name and a very big state-but any kind of inquiry was potential trouble, and he wasn’t going to let it happen. He would have to start looking more like the concerned parent if he hoped to calm Lilly down.
After yawning, stretching, scratching his shoulder blade and pushing back his lank, dark hair, Lenny got out of bed. He pulled on some jeans, stuffed his feet into sneakers, remembered to put on a T-shirt, then went down the hall to his aunt’s bedroom.
The door was open, and he could see that, as he had expected, Lilly was propped up in bed. The room was neat but crowded, with Star’s narrow cot wedged between the bed and the wall.
As he stood in the doorway, Star’s back was to him, and Lilly was listening to her recite the lines from her part in the Christmas pageant. Lilly had not noticed him, so he stood back quietly while Star, sitting cross-legged on the bed, her back ramrod-straight, her curly, dark-blond hair escaping from the barrette, said, “Oh, Joseph, it does not matter that they would not accept us at the inn. The stable will give us shelter, and the child will wait no longer to come to us.”
“Bella, bella
Lilly looks like she should be in the hospital, Lenny thought with a twinge of alarm. Her skin was gray, and he could see beads of perspiration on her forehead. He was about to ask her how she was feeling, but stopped and frowned as he glanced at the top of the dresser. It was covered with a display of religious relics and statues of the Holy Family and Saint Francis of Assisi. Those he was used to-she always had been super-religious-but he still regretted that years ago Lilly had found the silver cup from which he had pried the diamond.
