Timepiece

  “David, I cannot imagine feeling any joy again in this life. It seems that all I can do is to ride the tide of the day’s events. But I cannot bear to see any more hate. We must let it end here.” She wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand. “I have already lost one of you to hate.”

  She placed her hand on his sleeve, gripping it tightly. David looked back over at the gun and as he did, she released her grasp. Her voice became soft, yet deliberate. “I cannot choose for you, David. It is your choice, not mine. But if you will be taken by it, I ask that you promise me just one thing.”

  David looked into her eyes. They were red and swollen, but beautiful still.

  “What would you have me promise, Mary?”

  “That you will save one bullet for my heart.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Seraph and the Timepiece

  “As a child, to visualize nobility was to conjure up images of kings and queens adorned in the majestic, scarlet robes of royalty. As a man, softened by the tutelage of life and time, I have learned a great truth—that true nobility is usually a silent and lonely affair, unaccompanied by the trumpeted fanfare of acclaim. And more times than not, it wears rags.”

  David Parkin’s Diary. December 19, 1913

  A decrepit, wood-planked wagon drawn by a seasoned mule plodded up the cobblestone drive to the Parkin home. When it neared the double-door entry, Lawrence tied back the reins and climbed down from the buckboard. David had seen the approaching wagon from an upstairs window and descended the stairs to meet it. When he reached the front doorway, Lawrence was already standing on the porch. His forehead was bandaged with white linen strips, and his right eye was nearly swollen shut. His left arm was suspended in a sling. He had removed his hat, and was holding it in his right hand over his chest. His eyes were moist.

  “I’m sorry ’bout your little Andrea,” he said solemnly.

  David lowered his head. Both men were silent.

  In the bed of the wagon, a canvas sheet concealed an awkward form. Lawrence wiped his eyes.

  “I wanted to do somethin’. I want your Andrea to have my angel.”

  David said nothing for a moment, then frowned. “No, Lawrence. We couldn’t.”

  “No use, David . . . I gave her up. Thought over it all night. Wha’s the use havin’ people thinkin’ I was somethin’ important. If I’m in heaven, it won’t matter much, angels all ’bout and such. And if I’m burnin’ in hell, shore won’t bring much satisfaction. If I’m just cold dead I won’ know no difference. No use,” he said resolutely, “I said my good-byes. That Andrea, now she’s somethin’ pure. A child should have an angel.” Lawrence glanced up the road, toward the cemetery. “I’ll be takin’ her up to the sexton’s. People be goin’ to the grave oughta have somethin’ special.” His voice choked as he wiped his cheek with his shoulder. “Real Italian marble. You tell MaryAnne there’s be somethin’ special.”

  David gazed at the man with quiet respect.

  “Jus’ somethin’ I oughta do,” he said solemnly. He put his hat back on his head and turned to leave.

  “Lawrence.”

  “Yessuh.”

  “Thank you.”

  Lawrence nodded and with one hand pulled himself up into his rig and coaxed the mule toward the cemetery.

  “Today, someone, thinking themselves useful, said to me that it must be a relief to have this ‘affair’ over with. How indelicately we play each other’s heartstrings! How willingly I would carry that pain again for but one glance of her angel face! How she nourished me with her innocence. She once confided in me that the trees are her friends. I asked her how she knew this. She said because they often waved to her. How clearly she saw things! To have such eyes! The trees, for her, shall ever wave to me.

  “If I am ever to comfort someone, I will not try to palliate their suffering through foolish reasoning. I will just embrace them and tell them I am heartfelt sorry for their loss.”

  David Parkin’s Diary. December 29, 1913

  “What prudery so ritualizes my grief as to press my letters with black sealing wax.”

  David Parkin’s Diary. December 31, 1913

  As the last six hours of the waning year fell beneath the tireless sweep of the grandfather’s clock’s serpentine hands, Catherine found David in the drawing room sitting at the marble-topped writing nook, barefoot and dressed only in night-clothes and a crimson robe. He wrote with a quill pen, and a crystal well of India ink sat at the head of the stationery. In the background a wide-mouthed Victrola scratched out a Caruso solo of La Forza del Destino.

  “Sir?”

  David looked up from his letter. “Yes, Catherine.”

  “Officer Brookes is come.”

  David lifted a corner of the letter and blew the ink. “I will see him.”

  “I will let him know.” She quickly stepped away. David set down the pen, tightening the sash on his robe, as he left the room. Brookes was not in the foyer as he expected but stood outside the home, twenty feet from the doorway. He had declined Catherine’s invitation to enter. Just as peculiar, the police wagon was parked in the shadow of the home’s gated entrance and Brookes had walked the length of the drive to the house. David walked out. He found the scene odd and the strange expression on the lawman’s face offered no explanation.

  “Last night Wallace Schoefield shot himself through the head,” Brookes said bluntly.

  David stared ahead coldly. He could not pretend sympathy.

  “He couldn’t live with what they’d done. Barker wanted you, and Wallace and four others went along with him. He said they didn’t know about the child.”

  David looked past the officer toward his horse-drawn paddy wagon. “Who did he tell?”

  “He left a letter. Barker started the fire by leaving a bottle of kerosene around the back of your home with gunpowder and a cigar to ignite it after they had left. That’s why Barker wasn’t there when the fire started.”

  Behind him, the horse whinnied and shook its head impatiently.

  “The child was killed unintentionally.” Officer Brookes suddenly squinted, then removed his revolver from his holster and handed it to David, who looked up quizzically. Brookes’s eyes darted back and forth nervously. His voice dropped coldly.

  “They’ll send Barker to prison, but they won’t be hanging him. He’s getting off easy. He should die for what he’s done. Barker’s locked in the wagon. If you want to kill him, I’ll say that I shot him in the taking.”

  David caressed the gun in his hand. It was evenly balanced and he ran his fingertips along the engraving that rose up its steel barrel. He stared at it for a moment, rubbed his forehead, then handed the gun back to the officer.

  “No,” he said softly. He turned and began to walk away.

  The response surprised Brookes, who returned the firearm to its holster. “It’s better than he deserves,” he shouted after him.

  David stopped and looked at the officer. “Yea. It probably is. But it is not better than Andrea deserves.” He looked back at the wagon and frowned. “Do your duty, Officer.”

  The officer tipped his hat. “Good evening, Mr. Parkin. To a new year.”

  “Good evening, Brookes.”

  At Catherine’s summons, MaryAnne came to David in the drawing room. She found him gazing silently out the tall twelve-paned windows that lined the north wall. She paused at the doorway, then slowly entered.

  “David?”

  He turned around. He was still wearing his robe and was unshaven, with several days’ growth shading his lower face. His eyes were red-rimmed. For a brief moment, she felt a pang of apprehension, as though she were approaching a stranger, not her beloved.

  “Remember, Mary? This is where we met our guests at our wedding. It looks so different to me now.” He surveyed the surroundings as if the room held some new intrigue. “Of course, there were flowers . . . and that palm . . .”

  MaryAnne clasped her hands behind her back. His words seemed to float with no apparent d
estination. She suddenly felt afraid.

  “I am sorry. I am babbling like an idiot.” He ran a hand through his hair, then breathed heavily. He turned back toward her. “I do not know how I am to act, MaryAnne. How a man is to act.”

  MaryAnne stared back quietly.

  “I walk around with this stone expression like some kind of statue. But I do not have a stone heart.” His eyes moistened. “And I wonder if this wall I have built up is to protect me from further assault or to retain the last vestige of humanity within me. Are men not supposed to feel loss? Because I feel it, Mary. I feel it as heavy as a horse falling on me.” He lowered his head. “And I miss my little girl and I don’t even feel worthy to do so.”

  His voice began to crack.

  “She was so small and needed someone to protect her.” He raised a hand to his chest. “I was to protect her, Mary. Every instinct I was born with cries out that I must protect her!” His voice rose in an angry crescendo, then fell sharply in a despairing monotone. “And I failed. I have more than failed, I have caused her death.” A tear fell down his cheek. His lips quivered.

  “Oh, what I would give to hold her just once more. To hear her forgive me for failing her.” He wiped his cheek, then lowered his head. MaryAnne walked across the room to him, then stopped abruptly. On the counter beside him lay two bullets. She looked up for an explanation. David glanced at the bullets, then back up into her face.

  “You were right. It is all that I have left of her. All my feelings and love for Andrea were in my heart—” he rubbed his eyes—“and hate kills the heart. Even broken ones.”

  He took a deep breath, then, in anguish, dropped his head in his hands and began to weep. “I need you, Mary. I need you.”

  MaryAnne took him in her arms, then pulled his head to her breast as he fell to his knees and, for the first time since Andrea’s death, wept uncontrollably.

  Five years later. Salt Lake City, 1918

  “There are moments, it would seem, that were created in cosmic theater where we are given strange and fantastic tests. In these times, we do not show who we are to God, for surely He must already know, but rather to ourselves.”

  David Parkin’s Diary. December 8, 1918

  It was a chill night and the winter winds rolled in frozen gusts down the foothills of the Wasatch Range, drawing the valley in its crystalline breath. Two hours after the sun had fallen, a child, not suitably clad for such a December night, knocked on the front door of the Parkin home.

  David was out of the state on business and as Catherine had been given leave for the evening, MaryAnne came to the foyer to greet the winter visitor. As she opened the door, a chill ran up her spine. MaryAnne recognized the girl right away. She was the daughter of Cal Barker.

  “What brings you here, child?” MaryAnne asked softly.

  The little girl timidly raised her head. Her face was gaunt and her clothes were dirty and ill fit.

  “I would like some food, ma’am,” she replied humbly. Her breath froze before her.

  MaryAnne stared for a moment, then slowly stepped away from the door. “Come in.”

  The girl stepped into the house. Her eyes were filled with wonder at its richness and beauty. MaryAnne led her down the corridor, then into the dining room, where she pulled a chair away from the table.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  The girl obeyed, dwarfed by the ornate, high-backed chair. MaryAnne left the room, then returned a few moments later with a plate of bread and curd cheese, a sliced pear, and a small bowl of broth. She watched in silence as the girl devoured the meal. When she had finished eating, the child leaned back from the table and looked around the room. Her eyes focused on a small gold-framed photograph of Andrea, clothed in a beautiful umber velvet dress with a lace-bibbed bodice. She smiled at MaryAnne.

  “You have a little girl!”

  MaryAnne stared at the child, then slowly shook her head. “No. Not anymore.”

  “Where is she?” The girl’s brown eyes blinked quizzically, partially covered by the long, dirty strands that fell over her face. “She would be lucky to live in this house.”

  MaryAnne looked down at the Persian rug and blinked away the pooling tears. “She is gone. She had to go away.” She took a deep breath. “How old are you, child?”

  “I am nine years.”

  MaryAnne looked carefully into her face. She thought she appeared older than her nine years—aged as a child who has had the harsh realities of life thrust upon her. “What is your name?”

  “Martha Ann Barker, ma’am.”

  MaryAnne stood and walked over to the window. The snow outside fell in scattered showers and in the distance snaked across the paved street in snow-blown skiffs. “My little girl would be nine this winter,” MaryAnne said into the frosted windowpanes. She stared out into the black. “. . . This January.” She suddenly turned toward her small guest. “It is late for you to be out.”

  “I was so hungry.”

  “Haven’t your parents any food?”

  She shook her head. “My father was in the jail. No one lets him work.”

  The child’s directness surprised her. “Do you know why he was put in jail?”

  She shook her head again. “The boys say that he killed a child. I asked my mama, but she just cries, mostly.”

  MaryAnne nodded her head slowly. “Why did you come here? To this house.”

  “I saw the fire from the street. It looked so warm and nice inside.”

  “The fire . . .,” MaryAnne repeated softly. She sat down at the table next to her guest, contemplating the strange circumstance that had befallen her. She had been given a gift. A terrible, wonderful gift. The chance to see her own soul. She sat motionless, her hands joined in her lap, as her mind reeled with emotions. Then a single tear fell down her cheek. The girl observed it curiously. MaryAnne leaned close to the child and took her face in her hands.

  “You must remember this night, Martha. You are loved here. You must know this for the rest of your life.”

  The girl stared back blankly.

  “You will understand someday.” MaryAnne stood up. “Just a moment, dear.” She left the room, then returned with a small bag of flour and a canister of salted bacon, as much as she thought the child could carry. In a kerchief, stowed in the canister, MaryAnne had wrapped three gold coins.

  “Can you carry this?”

  Martha shook her head. “Yes, ma’am. I am strong.”

  MaryAnne nodded sadly. “I can see that. Now you run home and take this to your mama.” She escorted Martha back out to the foyer and opened the door. A chill wind swept into the house. “Remember, Martha. You are always welcome. You are loved here.”

  The little girl stepped out the door, walked a few paces, then turned back. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “You are welcome, child.”

  She looked at the woman gratefully. “Don’t be sad. Your little girl will come home.” The girl smiled innocently, then turned quickly and disappeared into the winter night. MaryAnne shut the door and fell against it weeping.

  The next morning, the first sheaths of dawn illuminated the windows of the downstairs parlor in iridescent brilliance, meeting MaryAnne, where it had daily for the past five years, before a fireplace reading her Bible. The Bible David had brought back with a wooden box, a porcelain music box, and an oversized dress that would never be worn. The book bore witness of her devotion to the daily ritual, marred with teardrops and wrinkled pages. MaryAnne had followed the routine every morning since she had lost Andrea, holding to the words as one who is drowning seizes a life ring.

  At the conclusion of her reading, MaryAnne wiped her eyes, then replaced the Gothic book on the elaborately carved rosewood bookshelf. She donned her coat and scarf and started outside on her daily trek to the angel statue.

  The winter air was damp and heavy, carrying moisture pilfered from the Great Salt Lake, which salt-saturated consistency kept it from freezing even in the severest of winters.


  In the distance, MaryAnne could see the angel at the top of a knoll, its head and wings capped in a new-fallen shroud of snow. She walked solemnly, her head bowed. She need not look to find her way, she could have followed the trail without sight.

  She suddenly stopped.

  In the freshly fallen snow were tracks leading to the angel. Heavy tracks, clumsy, large-bodied footprints that had come, and departed, falling back on themselves, but leaving evidence of the visitor at the base of the grave. MaryAnne approached pensively. Someone, that very morning, had knelt at the foot of the angel.

  As she neared, she could see that the snow had been wiped from the stone pedestal. On its surface, she saw a small parcel, a white flour sack bundle bound with jute. She looked around her. The morning sun illuminated the grounds and the snow sparkled in a virgin, crystalline blanket. All was still and quiet and alone.

  Noiselessly, she stooped down and lifted the offering. As she pulled back the cloth, the contents cast a gold reflection on the surrounding coarse material—a soft radiance from the treasure that lay within. There, without a note, on the marble step of the monument, had been laid a rose-gold timepiece.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Endowment

  Salt Lake City, 1967

  I stood outside Jenna’s room holding the velveteen case in my hands. My throat was dry as I slid the box into my trouser pocket and knocked gently on the door. A soft voice answered.

  “Come in.”

  I stepped into the room. Jenna sat on her bed writing in her diary. A bridal gown, sheathed in a transparent garment bag, hung from the closet door above a new pair of boxed white satin pumps.

  “Hi, sweetheart.”

  Her face wore the unique blend of melancholy and excitement given rise on such an occasion. I sat down on the bed next to her.