Page 22 of The Forsaken
“And Kate? What was her surname?”
Quinn was about to reply when Phoebe’s voice drifted up from the foyer. “Are you both up? I’ve come to collect some things.”
“You go on, Gabe. I’ll be right down. I’m curious about this visit to Holystone,” Quinn added as she reached for her hairbrush.
By the time Quinn came down, Phoebe and Gabe were already installed in the front parlor, mugs of tea in hand. Phoebe still refused to go into the kitchen, so Gabe made tea and toast and set their breakfast on a low table before the sofa. Phoebe was buttering a piece of toast for herself but held it out to Quinn while Gabe poured her a cup of tea.
“You look peaky,” Phoebe said as she studied Quinn. “Nightmares still plaguing you?”
Quinn nodded.
“Can’t your doctor prescribe something to help you sleep? You need your rest.”
“I don’t want to take any more medication than I have to,” Quinn replied. “I’m taking enough as is. I’ll manage. I try to kip during the day, while Emma’s at school.”
“Mum, do you remember taking me to Holystone Priory when I was a boy?” Gabe asked as he spread marmalade on his toast. “I must have been around six or seven.”
“You were five,” Phoebe replied. She looked away, clearly uncomfortable with the topic.
“Why did we go there?” Gabe persisted.
“I wanted to visit the Lady’s Well and had no one to leave you with. Your father had gone fishing with some of his mates and didn’t want you under his feet.”
“Why did you want to visit the well?” Gabe asked. “It doesn’t seem like your sort of place.”
“I wanted to pray.”
A hush fell over the room as Gabe gaped at his mother in astonishment. “But you’re not Catholic,” he finally said. “Why would you want to pray to the Virgin Mary?”
Phoebe sighed and laid down her uneaten toast. “I wanted to pray for a baby.”
Gabe and Quinn sat in shocked silence, waiting for Phoebe to elaborate. She was the type of woman who went to church to socialize, not to pray. She had once quoted Karl Marx at a dinner party, saying that religion was the opium of the masses. Graeme had laughed at her and called her a “closet socialist” in front oftheir friends. Phoebe hadn’t liked that one bit, but she’d stuck to her guns. When Graeme died, Phoebe had chosen to have him cremated instead of having a religious funeral service, a decision that hadn’t sat well with Gabe.
“I suffered several miscarriages before Gabe was born,” Phoebe explained, speaking mostly to Quinn. “I was devastated, and after nearly a decade of marriage I longed for a baby with a desperation only a childless woman could understand. In this day and age, they would have run tests and tried to figure out why I kept miscarrying, but fifty years ago the doctors blamed me. It was always, ‘Did you lift anything heavy? Did you allow yourself to become agitated? Did you take too much pleasure in marital relations?’ That sort of thing.”
“Why would it matter if you enjoyed marital relations?” Gabe asked, baffled.
“Because, my dear boy, some doctors believed that an orgasm could bring on a miscarriage,” Phoebe explained, making Gabe blush. “After my last miscarriage, they put me on the maternity ward. You know, just to drive the stake deeper into my heart. I lay there, watching besotted new mothers nursing their babies. I just wanted to die,” she said with a sigh.
“I’m so sorry,” Quinn said and reached for Phoebe’s hand. “I can’t even begin to imagine how painful that must have been for you.”
Phoebe nodded. “There was a young woman in the next bed. Sheila, she was called. She said that she and her husband had been trying for seven years. She couldn’t get pregnant. Then her mother told her to go pray at the Lady’s Well at Holystone. She refused time and time again until she finally went. Had nothing left to lose, she said. Nine months later she gave birth to her first child. She went again and had another baby shortly afterward. She swore it was a miracle.”
“So you went?” Gabe asked.
“I went. I got on my knees and I prayed to the Blessed Virgin, and to whatever pagan gods inhabited that mystic place long before Christianity, to give me a living baby. I swore I’d never ask for anything again if I had one child that survived.”
“And you had Gabe?” Quinn asked, stunned.
“Gabe was born less than a year later, healthy and strong. It was a miracle, in my book.”
“Why did you go back?” Gabe asked. He glanced away when Quinn gave him a loaded look, implying that he was being obtuse.
“I wanted another child. I was happy and busy with Gabe, but he was getting older, about to start school, and I began longing for another child. I wanted a daughter, you see.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work, Mum,” Gabe said.
“No, it didn’t. I prayed, but I wasn’t granted another miracle. Perhaps it was because I’d promised I wouldn’t ask again. Or perhaps because I was just too old by that point to get pregnant naturally. Nowadays, I would still be considered fertile, but in those days, a woman over thirty was considered to be ‘past her prime.’ We tried for several years, but I never got pregnant again. Still, I think my Gabe is a miracle, and I’ll say so to anyone who asks,” Phoebe concluded defiantly.
