Intermission

"The next day, Sully joined a posse to search for Mr. Tanner who had disappeared during the night with his son…"

"Margaret must have been frantic," assumed Rose.

The clock chose that moment to chime.

"Gosh! I'm late for dinner!" Rose sprang up, threw her coat on and plunked her wool hat haphazardly on her head; before rushing out, she kissed her grand-mother's cheek, and let out a fretful: "Mother's gonna kill me!"

Michaela opened her mouth to object, but thought better of it. It had taken a long time for her to finally agree with Sully that sometimes one should better not meddle with others' quarrels, hard as it was when it was one's own family.

She was left alone with her thoughts again, but right now she was glad to, and most of all relieved: her precise recollection of the events of that morning had brought a hot flush to her face. With the reddish glow of the fire, it was probably barely noticeable, and in her haste, Rose could not have possibly noticed. Sully's faint chuckle rang in Michaela's memory; she could picture him, clear as day, gently mocking her and her forever modesty.

She stood up stiffly, her old bones protesting at being drawn from the coziness of the armchair, and headed for the kitchen to try and fix something edible for her supper, then she would retire to her room. Rose might stay at her parents' that night. No use to wait for her return.

* * *

Rose opened the door carefully. A few strains of music were coming from the living room, and she could hear the distant, but distinct sound of her mother's angry voice. She closed the door behind her as discreetly as she could, took off her shoes and crept to the living room, where she hoped to find Alice.

Indeed her sister was sitting at the piano, practicing scales, while their little brother was reading, slumped in their father's favorite easy chair.

"You're late, sis', maybe you should have stayed with Grandma," murmured Alice without stopping her exercise.

"Mother's gonna skin you alive," added Michael for good measure.

"No need to tell me. You can hear her from outside. She's probably givin' an earful to Daddy." Rose frowned to assume her mother's familiar scowl: "You shouldn't give in to Rose's every whim," she boomed in a flawless imitation of her mother's manner of speech. "You spoiled her too much, and now she's behaving like a boor and an eccentric" she roared threateningly at Michael, who was tittering uncontrollably behind his copy of Treasure Island, while Alice was shaking her head wryly.

"You'd better go up now and face the dragon," she admonished her older sister, "before she comes back down here and burn the three of us down..."

"Especially if she hears you call her 'the dragon'," Michael sneered.

"Hey, you called her that first!"

"No, 'twas you!" He flung a cushion at Alice.

The playful bickering of her siblings did little to quell Rose's anxiety. She loved and respected her mother, but had never felt close to her the way she did her father, and the same was true for Alice and Michael. And since Joss' death, their estrangement had grown steadily deeper. She was not as afraid of being reprimanded as she was worried about her mother's worsening temper. She climbed the steps resolutely and stopped before the door, left ajar, of her father's study, her hand poised to knock.

"Listen to yourself, Diana; you're not making any sense. My parents are certainly not responsible for our son's recklessness." Joseph Sully's voice held a note of uncharacteristic impatience. "And how dare you accuse my mother of turning Rose against you! It's your guilt and your bitterness that stand between you and our children."

"Guilt? Why should I feel guilty of anything?" retorted Diana in a piercing tone.

"Because you failed to keep him from enlisting in the Army and going to Europe," answered Joseph wearily, obviously tormented by his own failure to prevent the tragedy.

"That's enough, Joseph. Stop, please stop." Faint sobs filtered through the small opening.

Rose lowered her hand, uncomfortable with witnessing what appeared to be a painful, but salutary confrontation between her parents. She was saved from having to choose between interrupting their conversation and going back downstairs by her mother's opening the door wider. Diana's gray eyes were sparkling with tears and resentment.

"There you are," she spat. "Why did you ever bother to come home at all, if you couldn't be on time for dinner?"

Without waiting for her daughter's excuse, she stormed out of the study to her room, slamming both doors behind her and leaving Rose rather dumbfounded.

"Rose?"

She turned her head to see her father smiling benignly at her. He beckoned her inside and resumed his place at his desk. Out of habit, Rose perched herself on one corner. She looked down at his drawn face, which betrayed both his exhaustion and his grief, despite his efforts to appear composed.

"I'm really sorry, Daddy. I didn't forget, I just..."

"You just lost track of time," Joseph finished, patting her knee comprehensively. He sighed. "Runs in the family."

Rose smiled a bit ruefully: "I suppose. But I don't understand why Mother makes such a fuss over the littlest things. Mike told me she went hysterical because of a shirt he had ruined by fallin' in a puddle of mud... What, with our family history, she should have thought it meant good luck... Sorry, it wasn't funny," she apologized when she noticed her father didn't smile at the evocation of the "love story" between their family and the Colorado mud.

"It would have been in other circumstances, I guess. Forgive my low spirits, Rosie, it's been a long day."

"How are things with the Lodges?"

"Actually, I expected much worse from them…"

"What d'ya mean?"

Joseph glanced at her daughter significantly.

"Ya think… they coulda killed… their baby?" stammered Rose in horror.

Joseph cocked an eyebrow in assent.

"How could someone do this? It's… it's…. there's no word for that!" Rose fumed.

"Since the Lodges tend to consider their offspring only as heirs to their dynastic prestige, how could they accept a disabled child, even to a small degree? Easier for everyone to make the baby disappear."

Rose could not help but wince at the gruesome images her mind conjured up at her father's words. A lifeless tiny body being jerked from under a murderous pillow, before being thrown into an anonymous hole, without a decent burial… She shuddered.

"Trouble is," Joseph carried on, "now that the child's condition has become public's knowledge, Clarence can't pretend the child died in its sleep one night, it would appear too suspicious. And with Amelia sheltered at the Clinic for now, he's completely powerless." He removed his spectacles and rubbed his temples tiredly. In a second, Rose was on her feet again.

"Want me to bring ya somethin' to drink, Daddy? Maypop?"

"Don't worry, sweet girl," Joseph stated, giving her daughter's waist a light squeeze. "You should get back downstairs, and spend the evening with your sister and brother. They miss you, you know."

"Yeah… won't you join us? We could play cards," Rose suggested.

"Maybe later, I still need to read those." Joseph indicated the small pile of papers in front of him.

Rose stuck out her lower lip in an affected pout: "You work too much."

Both chuckled softly and said in unison: " Runs in the family!"

"See you in a little bit then." Rose kissed the small hairless patch on the very top of her father's head and headed out. Before she went through the door, Joseph called her back.

"Rose, don't be too hard on your mother, she's still grieving."

"We all are, Dad, but we're not bitin' each other's head off for that matter. That won't bring Joss back."

"I know, but please tell your siblings to be more patient with her, will you?"

Rose nodded, fighting the urge to point out that it was probably a lost battle since her mother's behavior was even trying to his renowned patience. She could only try…

* * *

"Already up and about, Sweetheart?"

Michaela was very surprised to see Rose in the kitchen, busily cooking breakfast, when she came downstairs the next morning.

"Yup. Same could be said 'bout you."

"When did you come back?"

"Just a few minutes ago. Daddy dropped me on his way to the Clinic, he wants to check on Amelia and her baby." Rose's voice trembled on the last words, when she remembered the atrocities her father had mentioned the night before.

Michaela perceived a slight change in her granddaughter's attitude. "Something happened?"

Rose hesitated only a second, for she knew she could tell and ask anything to her grandmother.

"Not really… but Dad told me somethin' quite… upsetting."

"What was it?"

"Is it true that some parents k… kill their own kid, 'cause they can't accept it's not normal?"

For a second Michaela feared the worst: "Are you telling me the Lodges would…?"

"Oh, no, no, no, Gran'ma! Nothin's happened to the Lodge baby, although Dad had feared it might for a while… But the idea of…," Rose could not go on.

"I understand your shock, yet I'm afraid it's a very sad reality. There are people who just can't cope with what they consider an inextricable situation, which lead them to do something desperate, like killing."

"But Gran'ma… a baby! How can a parent do that to its own child?"

"Some think their child will be better off dead, some others just can't take the ridicule and get rid of their baby, whatever the means."

Rose put down her forkful of egg, her appetite gone.

"What happened to little Thomas? Did Vernon…"again Rose could not bring herself to say the words.

"No, he didn't kill his son. The men found the two of them on the road to Denver…"