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"I was maddened. Just maddened. Here we were on our way home at last and she was beyond my reach. But the worst news was that she was sick! Too sick perhaps to even handle the computer!

" 'Rowan, listen, has she been sick all along? Has she been protecting me from it?¡¯

"There was a long silence, and then she said in her characteristic straightforward fashion, 'Yes, Quinn, I'd say that's what she's been doing. But I think you knew that when you left. You knew she was undergoing a continuous treatment. She's been at various plateaus. But she's never really rallied. ¡¯

"I gasped. I didn't know if it was audible.

" 'I've got to see her when I come home,' I said.

" 'We'll arrange it,' she responded, 'as soon as it's possible. But it can't be ri

ght away. ¡¯

" 'Can you give her my love?' I asked. 'Can you tell her I called? Can you tell her I've sent her letters?¡¯

" 'Yes, that I will do tonight,' she said, 'when I see her. And tomorrow and the day after. ¡¯

" 'Oh, thank you, Rowan, God love you, Rowan. Please, please tell her how much I love her. ¡¯

" 'Quinn, there's something else I want to say,' she said, surprising me. 'I know Michael's said it to you. Let me say it too. You really helped Mona. You got Mona to stop doing things that hurt her. You made her happy. ¡¯

" 'Rowan, you're frightening me,' I said. 'You're making it sound past tense. ¡¯

" 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to sound that way,' she said. 'I meant to say that during this time she's been deeply and totally in love with you. She's been writing to you, or talking to you by phone, instead of fighting us. She asks about you all the time. ¡¯

"I felt the chills come over me. My darling Mona. What had I done in leaving her? Had I fallen so in love with the letters and phone calls of Ophelia Immortal that I lost Mona herself?

" 'Thank you, Rowan,' I said. 'Thank you always. ' There were so many more questions I wanted to ask, but I didn't dare to try it. I was so afraid.

"That night the champagne flowed in Aunt Queen's suite. Nash, who had drunk far too much of it, but with our liberal encouragement, proposed toast after toast to the lady he loved most in this world, Mrs. Lorraine McQueen; and young Tommy, now age thirteen by a matter of two whole days, stood up to read a poem he had written for the occasion, declaring himself to have become a man thanks to his guardian and inspiration, nephew Tarquin Blackwood. Only I failed to comport myself in keeping with the occasion. I could only smile and salute everyone with my glass and say how very happy I was that we were returning home at last, to take stock of all we'd learned, and to all those we had missed in our journeying.

"The fact was, a multitude of worries and apprehensions had a Byronic hold upon me. Not to see Mona was foremost among them. But I was also obsessed with Petronia, that she was occupying the Hermitage so boldly, and of course I was thinking of Goblin. Was I fool enough to believe that Goblin would not show himself to me as soon as I came within the orbit of Blackwood Manor? I was not.

"And so the three-and-a-half-year intermezzo was ended.

"The following morning we departed for Newark with a connecting flight to take us immediately to New Orleans. "

Chapter36

36

"CLEM AND JASMINE BOTH GREETED us at the airport and I burst into tears embracing them, so glad was I to see them; and never before had Clem looked so handsome in his chauffeur's black suit and official hat, and never had Jasmine looked so lovely in her tailored suit of gray wool and her signature blouse of white ruffled silk, her blond Afro full and shaped and her tears flowing freely.

"Cheerful old Allen had also come to collect the luggage in the pickup and I fell to embracing and kissing him, but then came a moment of truth when Terry Sue appeared in a candy pink suit, much like the last one I had seen her wearing over three years ago, with a new baby on her hip (the last one had not been fathered by Pops); and Tommy ran to her, putting his arms around her and kissing her.

"It took a moment for me to recognize the slender and beautiful teenaged girl beside her, and then I realized it was Brittany.

"Tommy looked to us as to what to do, and I, drawing him aside, asked what I should have asked before we had come to this juncture: 'What do you want?' 'To stay with you,' was his answer.

" 'I then went to Terry Sue and put it to her that Tommy wanted to finish out the trip with a spell at Blackwood Manor if only she would allow it, and I told her and Brittany how wonderful it was that they had come to the airport. I slipped Terry Sue all the twenties I had in my wallet, and that was plenty.

" 'All right, you behave yourself, Tommy Harrison,' she said. And she gave him a big kiss.

" 'Brittany, I'll call you tonight,' he said to his sister.

" 'You've grown up to be a beautiful girl,' I told her.

"Of course Aunt Queen was showering her with compliments, and had even taken off her cameo -- one of the new ones from the town of Torre del Greco -- and given it to her.