Mother Lode by Carol Anita Sheldon Page A

there.”
    The sheriff looked around at the dirty cell.
“I could have O’Brien clean this place up for you.”
    Earl watched a cockroach scuttle across the
dark edge of the cell, and disappear into a crack in the wall. The
interior partitions of the cells had been plastered and painted
light green a long time ago. But years of abuse from enraged and
drunken prisoners had left the surface marred and broken, exposing
the skeleton of narrow wooden slats of lath. Battles had been lost,
nightmares had triumphed here. The ghosts of former inmates marched
across Earl’s mind.
    “You’ve had some time to think things over,
lad. I hope your mind’s cleared up.”
    Earl picked at a sore, waiting for the young
man to respond.
    Jorie frowned. “How’s my little sister?”
    “Mrs. O’Laerty is taking fine care of her.
Look, I don’t like this situation any better than you do. I’ll be
honest with you. Now if this is true, Jorie, and you cooperate with
us, I’ll try to get the sentence reduced.” He waited.
    Jorie looked at the sheriff, then gazed out
the window at the lightly falling snow. Finally, he shifted on the
cot. “You said I went to see a lawyer.”
    “Mr. Olsen over at Dollar Bay.”
    “Did he say why?”
    Earl searched the boy’s
face. Didn’t he know? “He said you wanted to commit your mother.”
    “ Commit her?”
    “That’s right.”
    Earl watched the color creep up the side of
the boy’s neck. He leaned forward. “The hearing’s coming up soon.
Are you ready to tell me what happened?”

PART II

Chapter 6
    “Where does Papa go every day?” Jorie asked
as he got ready for bed.
    “Tomorrow we’ll walk up the hill and I’ll
show you. Now, what story would you like?”
    “The flying horse one, Mummy.”
    The Greek myth Pegasus was his favorite
story the summer of his fifth year.
    “I don’t think I know it,” she teased, as
she tucked him in.
    “Yes, you do. Peggythis and Belly.”
    “Oh, that one.”
    Catherine heard her step-son coughing in the
hallway. Walter frequently hung around the fringe of their story
time. She had no quarrel with his listening in the parlor, but
bedtime was her special time with her son, the one hour she wanted
just for the two of them. Besides, at twelve, she thought Walter
too old for such stories; he should be doing his lessons.
    “Don’t tell the bad part, where Belly loses
Peggythis and gets punished because he flew up to the house of the
gods, when he wasn’t supposed to.”
    “I won’t need to—you just did,” she
smiled.
    Again she heard her step-son cough.
    “Walter, go to the kitchen and help Helena
with the washing up, there’s a good boy.”
    Catherine held Jorie close, while she spun
the tale once more.
    When she had finished, Jorie said, “I can
call my rocking horse Peggythis.”
    “That would be a good name.”
    Jorie yawned. “He’s flying, flying way up in
the sky, Mummy.”
    “Yes, Darling.”
    “The stars are his friends. Here we go, here
we go home!”
    She lay beside him as he slipped into sleep.
When she rose to leave the room she could hear Walter scuttling
down the stairs.
    What a difficult child he was, always
hanging in the shadows. She had not been able to trust him since
that awful incident in the ice-cream parlor when Jorie was a baby.
In the crowded room, the baby carriage had been placed in the
corner, where it had been tipped over. Catherine was convinced that
Walter had done it, though he wouldn’t admit it, nor would Thomas
punish him. Later various unexplained bruises had appeared on
Jorie’s arms and legs.
    She kissed her sleeping child, and went
downstairs. By the time she reached the kitchen, Walter was busy
helping the Irish housekeeper.
    The next day Catherine took the boys for a
long walk over the hills behind the house. A favorite vantage of
Catherine’s, she could see the lake, as it wound like a silver
ribbon around the bend, and Houghton on the far side. But today the
spring winds were cold, and she