Chapter 3 - THE MARK OF THE ANCHOR
Raphael carried Clara through the double doors of St. Leonard’s Church into the gray chill of Prince Street. Behind him, the murmurs of Boston’s harbor elite erupted into chaos, but he did not glance back. Milo had already brought the black sedan to the curb, its exhaust curling into the damp October air.
“Get Dr. Vane to the house,” Raphael ordered, sliding into the leather back seat while cradling Clara against his chest. “Now, Milo. If he isn’t waiting in the driveway when we arrive, he doesn’t work in this city again.”
The car surged forward, tires hissing on wet cobblestones. In Raphael’s lap, Clara felt unnaturally light, like a bundle of dry reeds. Her breathing was irregular—a harsh, hitching rhythm that he could feel against his ribs. Clutched tightly in his left hand was the rusted tin box, the brass lighter pressing into his palm.
His father, Mateo Duca, had carried that lighter during the war in the Pacific. It was stamped with the naval insignia: an anchor entwined with ivy. On the night Mateo was struck down by a turning car, the police had returned his watch, his wallet, and his bloodstained overcoat. But the lighter had been missing. The family had assumed an opportunistic spectator had stolen it from the wet asphalt before the ambulance arrived.
Yet Clara’s mother had kept it.
When they reached the Brookline estate, Dr. Kenneth Vane was already waiting by the front steps with his medical bag. Raphael carried Clara up the grand staircase to the second floor, bypassing the guest quarters entirely and placing her in the massive bed of his own suite.
“Out,” Dr. Vane said briskly, stripping off his wet coat and snapping open his stethoscope. “Give me twenty minutes, Raphael. Her pulse is thready, and her lips are cyanotic. Let me do my job.”
Raphael stepped into the corridor, shutting the heavy oak door behind him. Mrs. Dora was standing by the linen press, her apron gone, her hands clasped tightly before her.
“Where is Noel?” Raphael asked.
“In the sewing room, sir,” Dora replied, her voice steady despite the redness around her eyes. “I gave her some warm broth. She knows her mother is late, but she thinks Clara is simply doing the laundry in the basement.”
Raphael nodded slowly. He walked down the long carpeted hallway to the small room at the end. The door was slightly open.
Inside, the four-year-old girl sat on the upholstered chair, her knees tucked under her chin. The single-eyed cloth horse lay beside her. On the window sill, the three clean pebbles were still arranged in their neat, straight line.
Noel looked up as the floorboards creaked. Through the thick pink frames of her glasses, her gray eyes were calm, solemn, and impossibly old.
“Did Mama finish washing the church?” she asked.
Raphael knelt down on one knee, resting his weight against his heel so he was at her eye level. The scar on his jaw pulled tight. “She’s resting, Noel. She’s upstairs in bed. The doctor is with her.”
The little girl didn’t cry. She reached out with a small, chapped hand and touched the lapel of Raphael’s charcoal suit. “You have a flower on your coat,” she observed softly, pointing to the white gardenia pinned to his lapel for a wedding that had vanished.
“I do,” Raphael said. He reached up, unpinned the blossom, and placed it gently in her lap. “She told you about the church?”
“Mama said people go to church to tell the truth,” Noel said plainly. She picked up one of the three pebbles and held it out to him. “This is the first stone. My grandfather put it in the river when he was little. Mama said when three stones are together, the house doesn’t fall down.”
Raphael stared at the smooth river rock in the child’s small palm. It wasn’t a common Boston granite stone; it was a dark, polished jasper, native only to the mountain streams of northern Italy where his own family had originated.
Before he could answer, the door behind him clicked open. Dr. Vane stepped into the corridor and signaled to him with a grim tilt of his head.
Raphael stood, leaving the gardenia with Noel, and pulled the door until it was nearly closed.
“What is it?” Raphael demanded quietly.
“Mitral valve stenosis,” Vane said, pulling down his spectacles. “Severe. Rheumatic fever as a child, most likely, but that’s not what’s killing her right now. There’s old trauma to her thoracic cage. Several ribs on her left side were broken years ago and set improperly, compressing the chest wall. Her heart is enlarged and straining against the bone. If she experiences another episode of acute stress or heavy physical labor, her lungs will flood. She needs specialized surgery, Raphael. Boston General, the cardiac wing.”
“Arrange it,” Raphael said without hesitation. “Tonight.”
“I can’t just write an order,” Vane sighed, rubbing his temple. “The surgical board requires identification, medical history, and proof of legal residency. Who is she? Dora says she’s been on the payroll under a cash ledger for two years. Does she have a file?”
“She has a tin box,” Raphael said.
He walked down the hall to his bedroom. Clara was awake, propped against a mountain of white pillows. Her gray work dress had been replaced with a clean cotton gown. She looked small, fragile, and utterly defenseless against the dark mahogany furniture.
Raphael pulled an armchair to the bedside and sat down. He placed the rusted tin box on the nightstand between them, next to the brass anchor lighter.
“The doctor says your heart is failing because of broken ribs,” Raphael said, his tone gentle, stripped of the harbor authority. “He said they were broken years ago. At nineteen?”
Clara looked at the brass lighter, and a shudder passed through her shoulders. “I was nineteen,” she whispered, her voice rough. “Working the night shift at the old Atlantic warehouse near the docks. My mother had just died. A man came into the office looking for my father’s old papers. When I told him I didn’t know where they were, he... he threw me down the iron stairs.”
Raphael leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees. “Who was the man, Clara?”
Clara turned her head toward the tall windows, where the rain was beginning to strike the glass again.
“It was Otto Brennan,” she whispered. “And he was looking for a journal that belonged to your father.”
May you like
Raphael felt the air leave his lungs. “My father’s journal was burned in the car fire the night he was killed.”
Clara turned her eyes back to him, clear and brimming with tears. “No, Mr. Duca. Your father didn’t have the journal that night. He had left it with my mother two hours before the car hit him.”
