Miss Winnie’s head jerked around, her rheumy eyes wide with shock. “Miss Helen!”
Helen drew close, her fists clenched. “I have lived with the guilt all these years when it was your fault. I blamed Miss Lilly wrongly for the theft, which, again, you committed.”
Miss Winnie leaned forward in her wheelchair, hands braced on the armrests. “Look at everything you’ve accomplished after his death. You’d been his sycophant prior to that, bending to his will in every way. As did your mother, year after year. But you turned around and made something of yourself. I’m proud of you, Miss Helen.”
As Helen sputtered, unable to reply to the contorted compliment, Lillian spoke up. “You made yourself the judge and jury.”
“I certainly did. And if I had to do it all over again, I would do the same thing.” Miss Winnie sat back again, satisfied with herself. “Actually, no. If I had to do it all over again, I’d steal Martha away from that household when she was still a baby, and save her from a short life filled with pain.”
Helen recoiled. “You might want to remember who you’re talking to. I pay for all this out of my largesse, as you put it. At the end of this month, I can have them wheel you out and lock the door behind you.”
All the color drained from Miss Winnie’s face. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Helen wouldn’t hesitate to bulldoze anyone in her path. But turning a weak old lady out in the streets was coldhearted, even for her. Veronica looked like she was about to cry.
Lillian had to stop Helen from following in the heartless footsteps of her father. “Helen,” she said, “I am in no way defending Miss Winnie for what she did, but you have to imagine what it would have been like for her back then. All of us, including you, were at the receiving end of your father’s bullying ways; I remember so many instances when he made you feel small or inadequate. I’m not saying he didn’t love you, perhaps that was his way of showing it. But imagine being a sickly child and having that same fierce energy directed at you. Imagine being the one in charge of that child, and helpless to step in and stop it.” She thought of Bertha’s bottled-up fury, all of the people of that Pennsylvania town who’d been wiped from the earth. “You have a chance to end the generations of pain.”
“Through bankrolling his murderer?”
“Through forgiveness. Toward Miss Winnie, your father, me.” She paused. “And most of all, yourself.”
* * *
The foursome were silent on the drive back to Lillian’s house. Helen drove as if she were imagining Miss Winnie lying prone in the road in front of her, gunning the engine after every turn. On one sharp corner, the two kids in the back seat bumped into each other, and Lillian turned around in time to see Joshua gently tap Veronica’s leg.
“Whoa, there, missy,” he’d said.
Lillian wondered if they were a couple, what the story was, but this was no time to ask.
After Lillian’s plea, Helen had let out a guffaw and begun walking away. But she’d only made it a few steps when she hesitated, turned, and walked back to Miss Winnie. She lifted her hand and placed it on Miss Winnie’s cheek. Everyone froze, wondering what was to come next, and Miss Winnie began to cry. Helen wiped her tears with her thumb before straightening up and saying goodbye. It was a sign, Lillian hoped, that her words might have had an effect.
Once they were back at the farmhouse, Lillian invited them inside. Archer gave her an inquisitive look when they first walked in, but knew better than to pepper her with questions after taking in their somber faces.
Helen rubbed her eyes. “I hate that my family died still wondering if I’d accidentally killed Papsie. My mother, on her deathbed, told me she forgave me. I wish I could go back in time and prove to her that she was wrong, that I hadn’t done it.”
Lillian leaned over and rubbed Helen’s arm. “Everyone did as best they could with the knowledge that they had. Your mother always loved you, you know that. As did your father, in his own way.”
“It’s been almost fifty years that I’ve been tormented by the thought that I’d killed my father. It helps to know the truth, finally. I have all of you to thank for that. And I do thank you. Even if it came at such a cost. While I may never forgive Miss Winnie, we will always share a love for Martha.”
“So you won’t turn her out of the nursing home?” asked Veronica.
“I will not.”
Helen drew the cameo out of her pocket and placed it on the table. They all studied it as if it were some animal to be dissected in a science lab.