Читать книгу Ancient Inheritance - Rita Vetere - Страница 7

Chapter 2

Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana – Present Day

Alan Fairfield, seated in his favorite reading chair in the library of the old, plantation style house, looked out the window at the menacing storm. Lightning flashed nearby, blurred by sheets of heavy rain, and followed immediately by a crash of thunder that shook the house. He replaced the receiver, his connection with his granddaughter lost. The power was out.

Scudding, black clouds extinguished the remaining daylight, and Alan got up from his chair, intending to light the candles he kept handy on the mantle. He tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his joints as he made his way to the marble fireplace. “Guess I should be thankful I can move at all at my age,” he muttered to himself. Wish I’d taken Evangeline up on her offer to stay over. A wave of loneliness washed over him.

After lighting the candles, he picked up the framed black-and-white photo of his wife, Kate, from the mantle, the one he had taken of her at the lake the summer before he enlisted, in 1942. He’d captured her sitting on a sandy beach, her slim legs tucked off to one side. Long waves of raven-black hair cascaded around her bare shoulders while the lake shimmered behind her. He thought, as he always did when he studied it, that she looked like a mysterious mermaid washed up to shore by the ocean. It was this snapshot of her he had carried with him into battle every day in Germany during World War II. The picture, creased and folded now, remained his favorite. He ran his finger across her image and placed it back on the mantle, next to the other two.

One of the remaining photos was of him and his old army buddy Joe, taken on V-Day. What an odd-looking pair we made back then. The thought brought forth a wry smile. In the picture, a very young Alan, tall, fair-haired and neat-looking, stood in stark contrast next to short and stocky Joe, with his thick shock of unruly black hair and a feisty look about him. Their arms are slung around each other.

The last photo was of his daughter, Erin, standing tall and statuesque, her wild, fair hair streaming out behind her, all smiles and holding baby Catherine in her arms.

Catherine. Fear for the girl washed over him.

He shivered, remembering it all again, and returned to his chair by the window to look out at the bruised and angry sky.

A deep sense of foreboding fell over him like a shadow. Something about the storm felt ominous. It reminded him of that other storm, the one that had presaged the blackest day of his life. The passage of almost thirty years had done nothing to erase the pain. The memory of what had happened in 1980 still felt like an open wound. Before that October day, he’d been happy, his family still intact.

Consumed by the recollection, he saw not the storm but the images from that day while tears coursed down his face. As he sat, unmoving, the clock ticked off the minutes and the lengthening shadows stretched to darkness.