Breathless TalesThe Housekeeper Kept a Secret for 29 Years. Then She Saw the Locket Around the Neck of the Girl in the Wheelchair.
Conrad Prescott humiliated his son's girlfriend at dinner in front of every guest. He had no idea that the silver locket she wore had once belonged to his late wife, or why.
The Woman Who Saw Everything
Agnes Fairley had worked for the Prescott family in Charleston for almost her entire life.
She had served Catherine Prescott breakfast in bed. She had watched Owen grow from a chubby toddler into a quiet, decent man of thirty-two. And she knew stories about the family that even Owen didn't know.
One story in particular. A summer night when Owen was three years old.
Conrad Prescott had made it clear, a long time ago, that she was never to speak about it. Agnes had obeyed. She believed time would eventually bury the truth.
Then Lauren Mayfield came to dinner.
The Dinner
At first, Agnes barely noticed her. She saw a young woman of twenty-nine with soft dark hair and kind eyes, sitting in a wheelchair at the long mahogany table, trying very hard to be liked.
Conrad didn't make it easy.
"Owen tells me you're a schoolteacher," he said loudly, so the twelve guests could hear. "How charming. I suppose that explains the dress."
A few people laughed uneasily.
"I wonder," Conrad continued, swirling his wine, "how you plan to manage a house like this. The stairs alone."
"Dad. That's enough." Owen pushed back his chair.
Lauren put a hand on his arm. "It's fine," she said quietly. "I've heard worse."
Then she leaned forward to set down her glass, and something slipped from the collar of her blouse and caught the candlelight.
A silver locket shaped like a small oval, engraved with a single magnolia blossom.
Agnes nearly dropped the gravy boat.
Catherine's Locket
She would have known it anywhere. It had belonged to Catherine Prescott, Owen's mother, who wore it every day for years. Then, one summer, Catherine took it off and never wore it again. When Agnes asked, Catherine only said, "I gave it to someone who deserved it more than I did."
Owen had seen it too. He reached over and lifted the locket gently on his fingertip.
"Where did you get this?"
"My mother gave it to me," Lauren said, surprised. "When I graduated. She said it was the most important thing she owned."
Agnes gripped the sideboard.
Owen asked, "What was your mother's name?"
"Rosemary. Rosemary Mayfield."
For a moment, Agnes didn't see the dining room at all. She saw another night. The pool lights glowing green. A scream from the terrace. Catherine in her nightgown, sobbing. Little Owen, blue-lipped and coughing, in the arms of a soaking-wet nineteen-year-old nanny.
Rosemary.
Agnes looked up at Conrad Prescott. He had gone completely white.
The Night at the Pool
Owen found Agnes in the kitchen an hour later. Lauren was with him. Agnes put down her dish towel. Twenty-nine years was long enough.
"You fell in the pool when you were three," she told Owen. "Your father was supposed to be watching you. He was on the phone. Rosemary was the nanny. She heard the splash from the guest house and ran. She went over the fence, jumped in and pulled you out. When she climbed over the fence again with you in her arms, she fell onto the stone steps."
Lauren had stopped breathing.
"She hurt her back very badly," Agnes said softly. "She was in the hospital for months. Your mother wanted to pay for everything. Your father refused. He said if anyone found out he'd been on the phone while his son was drowning, his reputation would be ruined. So he fired her. He told everyone she'd been careless. He even said she'd stolen your mother's locket."
"But my mother gave it to her," Owen said.
"Your mother gave it to her secretly, at the hospital. To say thank you for your life. It was all she was allowed to give."
Lauren covered her mouth. "My mother had back pain my whole childhood," she whispered. "She told me it was an old accident. She never said where."
Owen's Answer
They walked back into the dining room together. The guests were having coffee. Conrad stood by the fireplace, holding court.
Owen didn't raise his voice.
"Dad, I just found out why I'm alive," he said. "It's because of Lauren's mother. The woman you fired and called a thief."
The room went silent. Conrad opened his mouth, then closed it. For the first time in his life, he had nothing to say.
Owen knelt beside Lauren's wheelchair and took her hand in front of everyone.
"You asked how she'd manage a house like this," he said to his father. "She won't have to. We're leaving. But first, I'm going to go meet the woman who saved my life and thank her properly."
The following Sunday, Rosemary Mayfield opened the door of her small house in Summerville to find a tall young man on her porch, holding a bouquet of magnolias.
"Hello, Mrs. Mayfield," Owen said. "I think you knew me when I was very small."
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Fiction. Any resemblance to real persons or events is purely coincidental.
