Chapter 6 - Christmas at the Wrong Table
Christmas morning arrived without a miracle. Anna’s fever had eased, but she woke frightened about the apartment, her job, and the possibility that Rosie’s school would hear a twisted version of the market incident. Arthur understood that a hotel room and a wealthy stranger could not solve those worries by wishing.
He asked Anna what she needed first.
“A written record that Gordon owes me wages. And a safe place for Rosie to sleep next week.”
“Done,” he began.
“Not done,” Anna corrected. “Started. I need to know what paperwork exists and what choices I have.”
Arthur nodded. He arranged an independent employment attorney, paid by a charitable fund that would not require Anna to surrender her claims. Miriam helped Anna contact a tenant advocate. Rosie chose a Christmas breakfast from the hotel menu and ordered an extra roll for later.
“It's included,” Arthur told her.
“I know.” She slipped it into a napkin. “You never know.”
Arthur said nothing. He had once thought poverty was chiefly a matter of money. He was learning how it changed the way a child looked at a bread basket.
At ten, Frederick called. “Family brunch. Mother’s silver. Come home, Arthur.”
“Lucy’s letter mentions North House.”
Silence.
“Those records are old,” Frederick said.
“So is my daughter’s disappearance.”
Frederick invited him anyway. Arthur went with Ruiz’s knowledge, leaving Anna and Rosie safely at the hotel. The Vale mansion glowed with candles and expensive evergreen arrangements. A quartet played carols near the staircase. Arthur remembered Lucy sliding down the banister there when she was twelve, laughing as Margaret pretended to scold her.
Frederick stood beside a table set for twenty. His adult son, Owen, poured champagne.
“You look terrible,” Frederick said.
“I found Lucy’s coat.”
Owen dropped the bottle stopper.
Arthur noticed. “You knew?”
Owen looked at his father. Frederick answered for him. “He knows how hard this has been on you.”
Arthur set the blue wooden bird on the table. Owen stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
“A little girl gave it to me.”
Owen whispered, “Rosie.”
Frederick struck the table with his palm. The silverware jumped. “Enough.”
Arthur turned toward his nephew. “You know her name.”
Owen’s eyes filled. “I used to drive the Christmas packages to Anna’s apartment.”
“Packages?”
“Groceries. School supplies. The first two years.”
Anna had never mentioned packages. Arthur realized they might have arrived before Rosie was old enough to remember.
“Why did they stop?”
“Dad said Anna was asking questions.”
Frederick stepped toward Owen. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Owen did not move. “I was nineteen. I saw the room.”
Arthur's heart began pounding. “Room 9?”
Owen nodded. “There was a woman there. She was holding a baby. She kept asking for Lucy.”
“Who was she?”
“I never learned her name. Dad told me she was ill.”
Frederick seized Owen’s arm. Owen pulled free.
“Stop,” Owen said. “I’m not nineteen anymore.”
Arthur left before brunch. He took Owen with him because Owen asked to speak to Ruiz. On the drive, his nephew explained that he had spent years convinced he imagined the woman. He had been drinking heavily then, and Frederick used that history whenever Owen asked questions.
At the station, Owen identified Leonard Shaw in an old photograph as the man who locked Room 9. He also remembered a nurse who visited carrying a canvas medical bag with a silver clasp.
Ruiz showed him photographs from the care facility. Owen pointed to a woman named Celia Marsh.
“She was there.”
Celia had died three months earlier, leaving her belongings to an unknown beneficiary. Ruiz requested the probate file.
That night Rosie gave Arthur a handmade card. She had drawn a bird perched on a cane.
“You look less lonely now,” she told him.
He smiled sadly. “I feel less certain.”
“Mom says those can happen together.”
Arthur placed the card beside Lucy’s letter. Then Miriam called.
May you like
Celia Marsh’s beneficiary was listed as Lucy Vale.
And the mailing address was current.
