Diamond in the Rough: Chapter 86

Todd said, "She asked you that?  For me to come and see her?"

"She did.  She wrote it to me.  One of the very first things she said, when she came back to the land of the living."  Sister Rebecca Katherine said.

"I want to go see her.  Shouldn't I?"

"Ya were in Chicago when she asked me.  Then, the situation with Mitch Laurence at La Boulaie happened.  This is the first chance I've really had to tell ya."

"I want to see her, now.  Will you go with me?"  he asked her, standing up by the table.

"Yes, Todd, of course I will.  Now go and get yourself together.  I'll call ahead to Ray Martino."

Todd leaped up the staircase, and came back with a jacket over his jeans and blue button down.  He threw his shoes on and called Williams to the front.  "Let's go Sister, I haven't got all day."

***

Blair said, "I suppose I could tell her the truth about you.  And about what happened.  If you'll just talk to me and stop this game."

Mitch looked at her, and she could not quite remember when he looked this way before.  "I'd have to believe you."

"You would.  But why would I want my man's mother to believe lies?  Why would I want her to be denied the truth?  What would I gain?"

"What do you want, Blair?"

"I want to know what happened to him.  I want to know how young he was when it started.  I want to know why she left him there.  Why she left him with that monster.  I want to know whatever you can tell me about what happened so I can make sense of what this did to my husband."  She didn't realize it, but by the time she was done talking, she was pounding the table with her fist.

"He was young."

"Was he fourteen?  Was he nine?"

"Younger."

"Oh God," she wept.  And after pulling herself together, she said, "How old?"

"The talk among the parishoners started when he was about five.  You don't need to know ANY of this."  He almost appeared concerned, but she knew not to attribute that to him.  

"I want to know.  Just like you do.  She drew you.  The pictures were very detailed.  You were always younger, and strong.  When she tried to write about you, she couldn't remember much.  I believe she's confused.  But, first, Todd."

"She should know the truth.  About me."

"Todd!"  She screamed, and put her fist against the metal surface again.  John, who had been leaning against the wall, brought his arms folded across his chest and looked to the ceiling, raising an eyebrow.

"Bitsy confirmed it later.  She caught him, doing something vile, when Todd was just in kindergarten.  He was five, maybe six.  The churchgoers talked about it.  No one else ever saw anything, if that is what you mean."

She swallowed the bile that had creeped into the back of her throat.  "How did you find out about the room?"

"A guy named Stick told me.  Sal.  He worked for me.  Peter called me, said she was hurt and needed medical attention.  I sent him over there to get her.  She'd gone missing from the church for a while.  We hadn't seen her around.  Then Manning called.  We expected she may have had some kind of accident.  Stick was never the same after he saw that room and what happened to her."

John was stoic.  Mitch's words could be verified by Blair herself from meeting the man.  "Go on."

"He brought her to me.  She was half dead.  Bloody, and thin.  We put her up at the compound.  Some medical people who were followers of The Messenger tended to her until she was well.  She never went back."

"Todd was nine then, right?"

"Probably.  She never went back to that house after that night.  I swore to that."

"What about Todd?"

"Manning wouldn't give him up.  She wanted him.  I said no, because Manning wouldn't give him up.  I didn't want him either.  Didn't want to help Victor Lord's son."

Her mouth dropped, and John also reacted.  She said, "You knew he was Victor's son?"

"Yes.  That's where I was getting my money to run my church.  For my silence.  From Victor and from Manning.  I didn't want to cross either of them.  He was a Lord.  You know how I feel about them."

"But he was only a child.  A little boy."

"She wanted him with her.  She wasn't getting her way.  She was brought up to a cabin in New York once, to see him.  Stick drove her.  She pretended to be on her own with a new husband.  There was none.  She told him she was all right, and told him to be good.  She told him to try and love Peter.  When she got back, she begged for me to get him for her.  She knew I loved her, and I told her I would try."

"You were together then?"

He hesitated.  "We were."

"Did you go and try and get him?"

"It was too late.  Peter found out that Todd had seen her, and he beat him to the point of hospitalization.  He said he had fallen in a quarry.  Some months after Todd healed, Peter came to Bitsy, and told me he was going to talk with her, alone.  She agreed to it.  About an hour later, she was gone.  I never knew what happened, but she was gone, and Peter was.  He never took my calls, I tried to find her.  About six months later, I received a letter from her.  It said she decided to run away, and she would not be back, that she never did love me, and that nothing mattered anymore.  I'm not sure she wrote that.  At that point, I went on with my church, and built it up even more.  Peter did his thing with Todd, I never kept track of that.  I did hear about five years later about that attack on him by Todd, but other than that, it became part of my past."

"He must have taken her, and beat her and left her for dead on the doorstep of some institution."  Blair spoke, half to herself.

"Does Todd remember that?  Any of this?"  he asked.

"No.  Maybe Peter never brought her back to that house.  Maybe he did it somewhere else.  And then, she took years to recover.  Todd thought she died.  She said she was told that he died, too."  Blair said.

"She was.  That was the only way to get her to stop begging for him.  That he died in a car crash."  She remembered the same thing from Bitsy's letters.

"You didn't beat her."  Blair said, decidedly.

"No.  I've done a great deal of things, to a great deal of people, but I never hurt her."

She stopped a moment.  "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

He looked down at his hands and then back to her.  "What sense is it for me to lie?  At this point?  Since when have you and I had any conversations that had any truth before today?"

She thought about it.  His story matched Stick's perfectly in all the right places, and Todd's in some others.  

Without provocation, he said, "Why would she call me 'The Evil One?'"

"I think I know," she said.  "Todd is the most important thing to her, and he was.  You kept her away from him.  It's only natural that is how she saw you.  And even when she was your lover, she probably saw you that way.  You let that man rape her baby.  No one is going to love a man who would allow that."

He swallowed.  "Point taken.  But he was a Lord, you understand."

"No, I'll never understand, and in fact," she reached across the table and slapped his face as hard as she could, noticing John's covering his mouth when she did.  "That's for that little boy.  And you deserve worse."  

She broke down, and John, watching carefully as to not get blindsided, said, "Are you done, Blair?"

She pulled herself together.  Mitch had barely flinched at her slap.  "Do you have any more questions?"  she asked, business-like.

"No.  Except one.  Will you tell her?"

She said, "Yes, I will.  I will tell her.  I said I would, and I will."

John said, "Blair?  Anything else?"

"Just want to know how one man could be so dark and so hateful."  She stood up.  "But I know you can't answer that."

She headed to the door without John's escort, and turned the corner into the hallway and fell against the wall, sobbing and looking to the ceiling.  John came out of the room with Laurence, handed him to a different guard, and put his arms around her.  "It's all right.  You got what you came for," John said, and she shook with tears against him.  She could only nod, for words would not come.

***

Todd and Sister Rebecca Katherine made their way into Mountainview, and signed in.  Ray was in the lobby to greet them.  "Hey, Todd, Sister.  Glad you're here."

"Hi Ray.  How's things?"

"She's doing well, Todd.  Better than I expected.  Her visit from Sister Rebecca Katherine made a difference.  Somehow, she started connecting with people again."

"Can I see her, now?"

"You can."  Ray led them to the staircase and toward the room Todd remembered securing for her weeks back.

When he entered the room, she was sitting at a desk, drawing.  She had a watercolor set near her, and a small cup of water.  She looked up, and smiled. 

Todd said, "Momma."

She nodded, and got up, smoothing her dress.

He said, "You look pretty, Momma."

She moved toward him, and handed him a note.  He read it aloud, "I heard on television about the problem you had.  You almost died, but you are all okay.  I am so glad."  

He added his own thoughts.  "Yeah, we're all okay.  Are you?"

She nodded.

She took his hand and brought him to the desk.  He sat by her, and Sister Rebecca Katherine watched from a chair by the window.  She wrote, I don't want to go with the sparrows, anymore Todd.  I want to stay here, with you and Blair and the babies.  I am going to show my art at St. Anne's Hope Weekend.  I am happy for that.  But your eyes look sad.  Something is wrong.

He swallowed.  "No, I'm just tired from the problem.  Everything is okay.  Momma, Blair's going to have another baby."

She scribbled furiously.  I am so happy!  Are you?

"Yes, very."

Todd, the man on television, it was The Evil One.  He came to hurt you.  Again.

"Yes, it was him."

He is a hateful and bad man.  He tried to hurt you and your babies.  Is Blair all right?

"She's fine."

She took his hand in hers and looked into his eyes.  You must stop thinking about Peter.  He's not here.  Ray says he's not here.  Ray says he's gone.

Todd found a lump forming in his throat, and he pushed it back.  She wrote, and wrote for a longer period.  He felt his eyes welling up, but sniffed and fought to keep his strength.  She handed him the paper.

He's dead.  He's not here, to hurt us anymore.  I am sorry that I left you there, with him.  I still don't know what happened to me, not all of it.  But I was wrong.  I should have done something to stop him, and I blame myself for it.  I always will.  I am sorry for what he did to you, and us.  But he's not here.  You stop thinking of him, and the chamber.  It's all gone.  It's all nothing now, Todd.

Todd's forehead wrinkled up as he tried to hold back tears.  His voice shook as he said, "It's all right, Momma.  You did what you could.  I'm sorry for what happened to you, too."

She opened her arms and he went into them, and found himself crying against her chest.  Above his head, he could hear her making a familiar sound, though the first he had ever heard her make.  

"Shhhhh," she whispered, and slightly rocked him.  

He said, "Momma," softly, and closed his eyes.

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