I spent two weeks in Rochester Medical Center ICU, I was chastised by everyone about not wearing a seat belt. I had apparently gone through the windshield and landed in the field.
On the inside I was incoherent and inconsolable. I refused to believe , these past few months, had all been a dream that sustained me in that field till I was found
I smiled and accepted Peter’s kiss a bit more light-hearted than usual as I woke up in the hospital.
“I was worried”, he said, “I thought we’d lost you”
“Me too”, I said
He reached to kiss me again when my father who hadn’t left my side began to cough. It made me laugh. I loved his cough.
“Clara, where is your promise ring ?”, my father asked.
I looked down at my empty ring finger, my heart skipped a beat.
“It—must have come off in the accident.”
I moved back in with my parents while I healed, when they were at work I scoured our family home looking for a sign of my grandparents sordid past. For now I only had one lead to go on.
I borrowed my parent’s Lexus and drove 4 hours just in time for morning classes at Yale University. Summer classes were in session and I went to the academic buildings and looked though the class roster.
I skimmed it till I came down to the name I was looking for.
I got instructions and headed to the lecture hall, the class was almost over and I sat in the back as the same curly haired man happily lectured about the use of fiction to degenerate and produce history. I stayed in the back when class let out. I had to know.
“Excuse me”, I said, “Dr. Emile.”
He looked up from his podium like I was any other student.
“Don’t you go calling me Doctor, Clara.”
“Emile !”
I nearly attacked him with a hug
“Why is this happening ?”, I asked, “I thought it was some type of wonderful dream . . .”
“Let me show you something”
He pulled a book out of his bag
“This is an old law, something I have been considering”, he said reading from a large book, “Should a man be sentenced to hang by pain of death, may be saved by a virtuous woman whom agrees to save him."
“I don’t understand”
“Clara, you sacrificed yourself for all of us. In doing so you gave us a second chance. Saved us, if you will.”, he smirked, “they didn’t sacrifice virgins for nothing”
“This is why Victor wanted me, he wanted a second chance but that means . . .”
“Let me show you something ,Clara.”
I followed him to his car, he drove to
“She might not remember you, she was young”
I watched as Kayla ran to a police officer and hugged and kiss him. I held my hand to the glass as she got in the car with her father.
“Victor could have used her”, I told him
“He didn’t know. . . children hardly understand the concept of sacrifice.”
Once again we continued our car trip to a retirement home upstate. We signed in as guest and seated in a decorated wheel chair I saw Ms. Ginger. A teenage girl was with her doing her nails and make-up.
She looked older and although we didn’t get any closer that day she looked up and winked at me.
I sat in silence as Emile began to take a familiar route, there was only one other place we could be going. I had been there so many times in the past that the history never hit me till now.
Chautauqua, NY what had once been a small farming and fishing community turned into a low-key resort with lakeside property, half of which the DeLune family owned.
We pulled up to Chautauqua County Dock’s. The smell of salt
and water was thick in the air. We rented a motorboat and I could feel my
stomach turning as we made it across the lake.
I enjoyed the sea breeze against my healing skin as Emile steered, in the distance beyond the water there was a bay, with a French Manor that appeared to float in the murky sea.
The Old Fierro Farm
+2+
I helped Emile dock the boat and jumped out almost falling into the water. I ran across the moist courtyard past plaque in front of the house.
I knocked on dense wood doors. They were heavy but I kept knocking.
“Mr. Fierro”, I called. The doors didn’t budge and everything was still and silent. I knocked louder but still nothing.
I saw Emile gesturing me to come around back, there was a lively garden and in the center a perfect white marble slate
Addison Micajah Fierro
February 6th 1930 - March 15th 1955
“No”, I picked up a rock and threw it at the house, “Addison,
can you hear me ?”
I tossed another rock when Emile stopped me.
“It didn’t matter”, I realized, “They still killed him . . . and got away with it. He loved you .", I yelled to my Grandmother, “He loved you till the very end . . .and you still killed him.”
Emile and I walked back to the
plaque out front.
“Mister & Miss. Fierro set away reward money for their nephew’s murderer After 40 years Miss. Fierro’s dying wish was to build a monument to the beauty she saw inside her nephew over the old Fierro farm. The garden is where the old barn used to stand and the quarry is just beyond there”
Emile took a bouquet of David Austin roses from the back seat of his car and handed a few to me and we headed back to the grave.
“Nothing but the best for you, old friend”, he placed them on the grave
I kissed on of the roses and placed it on top of his.
Emile slid an arm around my waist and we walked back to the car. I let him drive while I cried all the way home.
Home
At Last.