CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On a sweltering Labor Day weekend in 1973, Rebecca returned to Boston for the first time since moving off Beacon Hill ten years earlier. She came alone on an Amtrak train. Her mother didn’t approve of her choice of Boston University. “Why Boston?” she’d demanded. “You’ve been accepted at Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Stanford. Why Boston University?”
Because it was in Boston, and Rebecca had dreamed about going back since she was eight. She’d restore the Blackburn name to its lofty pre–Thomas Blackburn position of respectability. And she’d do it in Boston.
But she didn’t tell her mother that. She claimed she’d decided on B.U. because they had offered her the best financial aid package, which was true. Smart, fatherless and the eldest of six, Rebecca had had no trouble getting scholarships.
“You don’t have to take me,” she’d told her mother, and Jenny Blackburn made no pretense of her relief. She couldn’t go back to Boston. And Rebecca wasn’t going to make her feel she had to.
So, her stuffed duffel bag slung over one shoulder, Rebecca made her way from the train station to her dormitory, the only person on the subway not grumbling about the heat. She could have called her grandfather, she supposed, and prevailed upon him to meet her, but why bother? She hadn’t heard from him since she and her mother and brothers had left Boston; he hadn’t answered any of the flurry of letters she’d written to him in those first lonely months in Florida. The only reason she knew he was still alive was because her mother still got tense and nervous whenever his name was mentioned.
Her roommate was a tiny, cheerful eighteen-year-old from Westchester County named Sophia Loretta Mencini—Sofi. She owned twenty-eight belts and twelve pocketbooks. Rebecca, who had one of each, counted them. Sofi grimaced at Rebecca’s meager wardrobe and the tattered, unabridged dictionary she had lugged all the way from Florida and promptly labeled her new roommate an egghead. They became instant friends.
“But why all the crayons?” Sofi asked.
“They’re oil pastels. I hope to audit a few art courses, too.” She’d had a flair for art since she could remember, but didn’t consider it a practical choice for a career—or for erasing her grandfather’s damage to the Blackburn name.
“Major egghead,” Sofi said.
Rebecca laughed. “Just determined.”
* * *
On a drizzly afternoon in October Thomas Blackburn gave up on the notion that Rebecca would come to him and instead went to her. He tracked her down at the B.U. library, roomy and nicely laid out, a better facility than he’d expected. He considered the large windows with tempting views of the Charles River an unnecessary distraction, however, and he loathed having to argue his way past the security desk. Did he look like someone who’d try to sneak books out tucked in his pants?
He found his granddaughter reshelving an enormous cart of books in the stacks and knew her at once, this little girl of his now grown-up. Thomas ached at the sight of her. At eighteen, she displayed the same unfortunate taste in fashion as her fellow students. She’d tied a red bandanna over her hair and knotted it at the nape of her neck; it was the sort of thing his wife used to wear when she cleaned the attic. Her jeans and bright gold sweater had so many holes they weren’t worth mending. At least, mercifully, she was clean, the strands of hair flowing down her back from under the bandanna shining, that fetching chestnut that marked her as a Blackburn. Although she wore no cosmetics, her skin, even smudged with library dust, was radiant, and her eyes sparkled. There was an arrogant straightness to her nose—a Blackburn touch—and an altogether stubborn set to her jaw that was pure O’Keefe. Even dressed in rags, Rebecca, in her grandfather’s opinion, would have looked regal, but he suspected telling her so would only have made her angry.
“A fine way to spend a Saturday afternoon,” he muttered. “Does this job of yours leave enough time for you to study?”
She turned, and in the flash of her eyes, he could tell she’d recognized him immediately, but she quickly hid her surprise and, he thought, her pleasure at seeing him. “We all have twenty-four hours in a day.”
“How true.” Thomas lifted a discarded volume from her cart. Aristotle. He hadn’t read the Greek philosophers in years. “I suppose this job of yours is a federally funded position for impoverished students?”
“Not necessarily impoverished. Work study helps students from middle-class families get by, as well. The less your family can afford, the larger your work-study grant.”
“Are you at the maximum?”
She gave him a tight smile. “Not quite.”
“Make work,” he said.
“It feels like real work to me. I’ve been at it since noon. Of course, if I had a rich and generous grandfather paying my bills…”
He laughed, a faint feeling of pride rising up in him. She was a tough, outspoken young woman. If she were going to stay in Boston, she’d have to be. He found himself resisting the urge to hug her, asking instead, “When do you finish?”
“Another forty minutes.”
“Good. I’ll meet you downstairs at the front desk.”
“For what?”
“We’ll go to dinner.” He winked at her, wishing it could be the same between them as it had before Stephen’s death, when they’d done everything together during his home leaves and had understood each other so well. But those days were over. He’d ended them himself. “I’ll take you to the Ritz.”
Rebecca laughed, and Thomas had to look away so she wouldn’t see his reaction. He could hear Emily in her laugh, could suddenly remember his wife as clearly as if he’d last seen her just that morning, instead of nearly forty years ago.
“You can’t afford the Ritz,” his granddaughter told him. “Even if you could, you wouldn’t spend the money. Besides, I can’t take the time to go into town.”
“Marshaling your twenty-four hours?”
“You bet.”
“Then we’ll go to one of the disreputable student establishments on Commonwealth Avenue. You choose.”
He walked off with the Aristotle tucked under one arm to read while waiting.
Rebecca chose the student union because she could use her dining card and they wouldn’t have to go out in the rain. The rain wouldn’t have bothered Thomas, but he understood about the meal card. His own dinner proved relatively inexpensive, and they found an unoccupied table in a corner. He was surprised by how comfortable he felt among the scores of young students and would have enjoyed striking up a dialogue at the crowded table behind them on the Vietnam conflict.
“How did you find out I was in Boston?” Rebecca asked.
“Your mother. Don’t look so surprised. As much as she despises me, she believes it her duty to write me intensely formal letters once or twice a year with pictures of you all and one or two lines on your current activities.”
“Do you ever write back?”
“It would only annoy her if I did.”
Rebecca pulled in her lips, but he knew what she was thinking. He said, “I still have every letter you wrote to me. And I answered them all. I just never mailed them.”
“Because of Mother?”
“Because of you. You were a child, Rebecca. You needed to make the adjustment to your new life, and I didn’t believe you could do it with me indulging your homesickness for Boston. Then when you stopped writing, I felt I didn’t want to intrude.”
She gave him a long, clear-eyed look. “Sounds like a rationalization to me.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it is. Tell me about school. How are your classes?”
She told him briefly, but he wasn’t satisfied with superficial answers. He wanted to know if her professors were idiots, if her courses were rigorous enough, what texts were on her reading lists, whether she was required to write term papers and if there would be final exams. He had heard somewhere that young people were ignorant of geography and interrogated her on the whereabouts of Borneo, Calcutta, Rumania and Des Moines, Iowa.
“I hope,” he said ominously, “that none of your professors has given you the choice between doing a paper or a collage.”
Rebecca assured him none had. “You’re just worried because I’m not at Harvard.”
“Nonsense.”
She didn’t believe him. “Well, I think the quality of one’s education depends to a great degree on the individual. A dope going to Harvard will still come out a dope.”
Thomas sniffed. “That sounds like something someone who didn’t go to Harvard would say.”
“You’re such a snob, Grandfather.”
She tilted her paper cup of soda up to her mouth and got out the last of the ice, her eyes focusing on the man across from her. His tweed jacket was frayed and rumpled and his whitening hair needed a trim. Even if he’d had a million dollars in the bank, he’d probably have looked much the same. Thomas Blackburn had always hated to spend money. But there was something in his expression—just the hint of a shit-eating grin—that made her wonder if he wasn’t pulling her leg just a bit and not quite the snob he was making himself out to be.
“Why did you come to see me?”
“You’re my granddaughter,” he said. “Just because we haven’t seen or spoken to each other in ten years doesn’t mean I haven’t thought of you. I have, you know. Every day.”
She choked up. “Grandfather…”
“Come to supper on Sunday at the house. We’ll have sandwiches—bring your roommate if you wish. I’m correct in assuming you have no current gentleman friend of importance?”
Smiling through the tears in her eyes, she said, “You’re correct.”
“No room for romance in your twenty-four hours?”
“Not,” she shot back, “if I intend to maintain my four-oh average.”
* * *
By winter, Rebecca felt more comfortable in Boston and had gotten used to the idea that her grandfather had said all he was going to say on the subject of 1963—the deaths of Benjamin Reed, her father and Quang Tai, and his own retreat from public life. And what he’d said was nothing. She didn’t blame him for the tragedy; she just wanted to hear his side of what had happened. What did he mean when he’d accepted full responsibility for the incident? Was there any truth to the rumors he had associated with the Vietcong? She’d started to ask him a hundred times, but stopped herself every time. He’d only call her impertinent or presumptuous for asking. He knew it was on her mind and would tell her if he wanted to.
Even after a decade, her mother’s bitterness toward him was still palpable, and Rebecca wisely chose not to bring him up during her visit home during winter break. She didn’t mention she’d invited him to join her in Florida.
“Stephen and Mark and Jacob don’t remember you at all,” she’d told him, “and Taylor and Nate just barely. They’d love to see you. And the warm air would do you good. We could all go to Disney World.”
Thomas was adamant. “Your mother would slam the door in my face.”
Likely enough, she would have. Or done worse. Jenny Blackburn was still holding out hope that her daughter would transfer to another school. If nothing else, she figured the cold weather would lure Rebecca back to the south. Papa O’Keefe, a plump, red-faced, incredibly hardworking man, wasn’t so sanguine. “Not with that Yankee blood” was all he would say.
Winter didn’t drive Rebecca south. Continuing to maintain her high average and work at the library, she used snowstorms and subfreezing temperatures as an excuse to indulge her passion for art. It wasn’t painting and sculpture that seized her spirit, but graphic design. With design, she had a greater chance of having her work seen by and communicated to a large number of people. She found the process of design both challenging and enjoyable, as she took fine art’s conceptual way of thinking and applied it in practical uses. The blending of artistic elements, technical expertise, inspiration and business demands appealed to her.
It was her interest in graphic design that took her to the waterfront on a brisk April afternoon. Or so she insisted. A new building was going up and one of the top design studios in the country had been commissioned to do its graphic identity—enough reason for Rebecca to justify showing up at the press conference on site.
But the architect was Wesley Sloan and the builder was Winston & Reed, and when she cut her microeconomics class and headed out to the waterfront, Rebecca had a feeling she was walking into trouble.
She just didn’t know how much.