Chapter 7 - The Light on the Water
The storm returned on Saturday night, but it came off the land this time—a cold, dry wind from the northwest that blew the clouds out to sea and left the stars visible over Boston Harbor like sharp, white pinpricks in a field of black velvet.
Evelyn stood by the tall window in her third-floor room.
She was wearing her grey wool sweater again, her dark hair hanging loose down her back, her right hand resting on the broad, hard curve of her belly.
The baby was active tonight, turning slowly, her small feet pressing against Evelyn’s ribs with a firm, steady rhythm that no longer brought pain, only a strange, deep sense of space.
Beside her, sitting on a low cherrywood table, was the small cardboard box her father had brought. The blue silk volume lay open at page forty-two, its yellowed paper covered in the fine, copperplate script of an eighteen-ninety clerk.
Mercer, Clara. Age 16. Spinner. Native of County Cork. Discharged October 14 for non-attendance.
Beneath it, written in pencil thirty years later in her grandfather’s handwriting, were four words:
Paid in full. 1928.
A knock came at the door—soft, hesitant, very different from the sharp taps of the servants or the heavy tread of her father.
"Come in," Evelyn said.
The door opened, and Graham stepped inside. He had taken off his dark overcoat, wearing only his grey suit vest and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He was carrying a small tray with a silver tea pot and two blue china cups.
"Your father went down to the docks," Graham said, setting the tray on the table next to the blue ledger. "The ice is forming on the pilings in Charlestown, and he wanted to make sure the new draggers were double-lined."
"He doesn't like this house," Evelyn said, turning from the window.
"He doesn't like the land," Graham corrected her softly. "He’s like his uncle that way. If he stays in one room for more than three days, he starts feeling like he’s in a box. But he’ll stay until the baby comes."
He poured two cups of tea, the steam rising in thin, fragrant spirals through the cold room air.
"Travis called the gate twenty minutes ago," Graham said, handing her a cup.
Evelyn didn't take it immediately. Her hand remained resting on her stomach. "What did he want?"
"He wanted to speak to you," Graham said. "He said he was at a payphone in Revere. He said his mother was sick, and that Paige had gone back to her mother’s house in Concord."
"What did you tell him?"
Graham set the cup down on the tray, his long fingers resting on the silver rim. "I told him that the person he was looking for didn't live here. I told him that an Evelyn Mercer had lived in the South End until Thursday night, but that she had left no forwarding address."
"And did he believe you?"
"He didn't have much choice," Graham said. "The line was cut from our end after twenty seconds."
Evelyn walked back to the window.
Far below, beyond the dark hem of the Milton woods, the lights of Boston were spread out like a field of fallen stars—the high, gold windows of the Prudential Tower, the long, green ribbon of Storrow Drive, and the red beacon at the end of the long stone pier in South Boston where she had once spent a Sunday afternoon eating fried clams with a man who no longer existed.
She reached up, took the silver four-pointed star between her thumb and forefinger, and lifted the chain over her head.
She didn't drop it on the floor. She didn't throw it out the window into the snow.
She walked over to the cherrywood table, set the pendant down directly on top of page forty-two of the blue silk ledger, and closed the cover.
"Take this down to Thomas," she said softly to Graham.
Graham looked at the blue book, then at the silver star resting on its faded cover.
"Are you sure, Miss Vale?" he asked.
May you like
Evelyn looked down at her own hands—clean, white, the raw skin on her palms already healing under the lavender salve the nurses had given her.
"My name is Evelyn," she said. "And my daughter doesn't need a star to tell her which way the wind is blowing."
