Chapter 9 - ASHES OF THE OLD WORLD
The state police did not arrive with sirens.
They arrived at three-fifteen in the morning with six dark sedans, an ambulance from Boston Children’s Hospital that had two neonatal intensive care specialists on board, and a formal letter of clearance signed by the Governor’s legal counsel.
The young troopers who came up the spiral stairs of the chapel loft didn't carry their weapons drawn. They took their hats off before they reached the top landing, their eyes wide as they saw the daughter of David Bennett sitting in the sawdust behind the organ pipes, holding two infants whose existence had just rewritten the ownership of half the commercial waterfront between Boston and Lynn.
"Mr. Waverly," the senior captain said, his voice quiet, respectful, stripped of the arrogance the state police usually brought into our territory. "The medical transport is ready. Dr. Chen will accompany the infants to the high-acuity unit at Children's. We have two cars assigned to provide an escort across the river."
"And my mother?" I asked, standing up slowly, my bruised ribs protesting with every inch of the movement.
"Mrs. Waverly was intercepted at the entrance to the Ted Williams Tunnel at two-forty," the captain said. "She was in a private car with three pieces of luggage and twelve bearer certificates from the First National Bank. Marcus Crane is currently conducting a preliminary deposition at the federal courthouse."
He looked at Mara, then at the basket.
"The probate judge vacated the emergency order twenty minutes ago, sir. There will be no further state interference with the children."
We moved them down through the church in the gray light that precedes a winter dawn.
The storm had finally broken. The sleet had turned back into a soft, steady mist that hung over the rooftops of Back Bay like smoke from an autumn bonfire. Through the broken windows of the chapel, the sky to the east was beginning to turn the color of wet slate, edged with a thin, salmon-pink line along the horizon where the sun was hitting the outer harbor.
Mara was placed on a pneumatic gurney, her hand linked into mine so tightly that our knuckles were white.
Beside her, in a dual transport isolette that hummed with the steady, professional power of three separate battery backups, Julian and Leo lay on their backs, their faces pink beneath the clear plastic hoods, their breathing synchronized with the soft *click-click* of the digital monitors.
June Harper walked beside the gurney, her gray hair tucked back into her cap, her black winter coat unbuttoned to show the clean apron she had put on before we left the loft.
"You're done, Grant," June said as we reached the double doors of the ambulance.
"Not quite," I said, looking across the street toward the dark towers of the financial district where the lights were beginning to flicker on in the legal offices on the upper floors.
"Yes, you are," she insisted, her hand coming down on my arm with that same old, hard authority. "The terminal belongs to Thomas and the union now. The house on Louisburg Square will be an institute for young musicians—Mara already told Chen she’s signing the deed over to the conservatory on Monday. You don't have an empire anymore, Grant. You just have a family. And if you don't know how to run that without an iron pry-bar, you’d better learn before these two start walking."
I looked at Mara.
She was watching me from the pillow, her dark eyes clear and calm in the gray morning light. For the first time in seven months, there was no shadow of the grand jury between us. There was no ghost of my father sitting on the corner of the bed with his leather-bound manifests and his cold warnings about the loyalty of women from outside the districts.
"Grant," she said, her fingers tugging at mine until I leaned down over the gurney.
"I'm here."
"The dry cleaner's in Revere," she whispered.
"What about it?"
"I left my violin in the back room," she said, a tiny glint of humor returning to her eyes—the humor that had made me forget my own name the first night I saw her laugh at a dinner party in Cambridge four years ago. "The landlady said she’d sell it to a pawn shop on Broadway if I didn't pay the February rent by noon."
I looked at Mateo, who was standing by the Buick with his arm in a sling made from a yellow mechanic's rag.
"Mateo," I called out.
May you like
"I heard her," Mateo said, spitting into the gutter and reaching for the keys with his good hand. "Two hundred dollars for the rent, fifty for the landlady’s trouble, and the case goes on the back seat with the heat on high. I’ll meet you at Children's."
***
