Westerly

Chapter Eighteen #2

She was certain it was the coat the gulls recognized as they circled, their bird voices shouting for the old Irishman to toss a bit of fish or a slice of bread or popcorn from the pub.

Faye went to the spot where her father had fallen, sat on the splintered bench.

She took off her mittens, held out her hands to prove to the birds they were empty.

She set the mittens beside her, stuck her hands into the coat pockets in case Thomas had left some stale treat behind.

She withdrew a sheet of oniony paper, swollen with ink and creased from decades of folding and unfolding. Her eyes darted to every corner of the page before she could focus.

My friend, my friend, it is me, Hannie. I have burned your letter.

You must not correspond. Grass covers ground that should not be disturbed.

What we did cannot be undone. Nothing here for you but the risk of Fr.

and his outstretched hand and loose tongue.

He is a man first and would so save himself if it were Big Seamus to start with the questions or worse, the Sisters.

I looked about and found nothing to soothe you.

I went to Theresa, tho the two of us have little to speak over, her being so full of herself.

I drank her weak tea and fluffed her feathers so she would show me photographs from that Camera of hers.

Boys and Cows is all except the one here included from Summer and the six of them, strange as it is, the way they stand there out of time, though maybe that is but the light upon them.

I stashed it when her back was turned. It is dagger and salve, I fear.

I think of you fondly and wish for God to carry you in the palm of His Righteous Hand.

We sinners meet in the Churchyard soon enough.

Frantic, Faye turned out all the coat pockets, even felt along the hem and seams as if he might have sewn the photograph into a hiding place.

Only crumbs and cracker bits. Her parents had never even owned a camera, which seemed so strange to her now, the way she brought out her own Kodak for special occasions.

The letter said “the six of them.” Faye’s math only went one way.

Three O’Kane boys. And three girls—herself, Fiadh, and Elisabeth.

Elisabeth.

She wheeled around like one of the gulls, practically screamed at the notion that somewhere in the cove house, the image lived on.

She’d been on the lookout for something from Ireland, but it had never occurred to her that what was missing might be a photograph.

After Conor O’Kane died, she’d had dreams of her lost sister, dreams that bled into daytime thoughts as if a ghost were trapped on the wrong side of the veil.

She’d even bought a little diary like the one Jean had, thinking she would secretly write it all down, reconcile that she had a sister and that she, Faye, had left that sister for Fate to do its business.

She’d hid the diary in the back of a kitchen drawer, though it didn’t matter who found it.

The diary sat blank. To commit the truth to paper felt impossible.

Yet here was part of it, obscured by time and Hannie’s cryptic words.

If only she could see the photograph, hold it in her hand.

She closed her eyes. My Dear Elisabeth, she would write.

Forgive me. Just now I’ve seen a photograph of us together as children.

Forgive me . . . She could get no further.

This letter from Hannie did not mention Elisabeth at all.

Had Jean written to Hannie, begging to come back with the sorry imposter who’d drowned Fiadh?

Had Elisabeth been sent away? If I am dead, as dead I may well be.

Conor said those words to her. What had it meant?

And how could it matter now? It had been forty years.

But the photograph. She had to see it. She hurried to the cove house in time to watch the ambulance back up to the door.

Faye walked alongside the gurney as the medics brought Thomas into the house.

“Here she is!” Thomas said. “My little Faye, my good faery, my beautiful girl.” They transferred him to the hospital bed by the big stone fireplace positioned so that Thomas would be able to see out the window.

Faye hung Thomas’s coat on its hook but put the letter in her own pocket.

She stopped herself from tapping her foot impatiently as the medics finished settling Thomas.

She thanked them, ushering them out the door like unwanted guests, then turned her attention to Thomas.

The sight of him there—his favorite quilt tucked around him, his silver hair spilled onto the propped pillow like a furry halo—took her breath away.

For all the questions she had about the letter, what was in front of her was quite real.

She pulled a chair up next to the bed, dabbed a cool washcloth onto his forehead.

“Papa,” she said, holding out the letter. “I found this in your coat pocket.”

Thomas groaned, flicked his brittle wrist, turned away from her like a stubborn child. “I don’t want to see that.”

Faye scooted closer, pulled his shoulder gently toward her. “Papa, where is the picture? The one from the letter?”

“She would be your age. She would be you.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “But you are you, Faye, aren’t you? Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since you were ten years old. I’ve been so worried.”

“I’m fifty years old, Papa. I’ve been here the whole time,” Faye said. “The letter, Papa. It says there’s a photograph.”

Suddenly lucid, eyes wide, Thomas glared at Faye.

“That letter, it fell from the cookbook, which itself jumped from the shelf. I looked everywhere.” He threw up his hands weakly, a washed-up magician disappearing a long-toothed rabbit.

“She didn’t let me even have a look at it, not the letter or whatever picture it held.

I looked everywhere! Oh! To see her face! ”

Faye tried to calm him. “Jean? You want to see Mama again?”

Thomas gaped at Faye, his neck tensed. “Fiadh. Fiadh! God, if I don’t miss that child still. How could she keep it from me? My own wife!”

Faye could almost remember the day the photograph was taken, the boys’ mother with a camera, the way Fiadh grinned and the boys put their hands in their pockets to look tough.

Who among those children was dead now, besides Fiadh and Conor, besides the girl she once was?

Seeing her father’s pain was too much to bear.

There had always been reasons to keep the door closed.

Besides, who was she to criticize Jean for keeping the letter a secret?

Look at the pain it caused her father even now.

If anything, this confirmed Faye’s own decisions to keep the past hidden.

She looked at Hannie’s letter again. What we did cannot be undone. It was far too late.

“Go to sleep now,” she said to Thomas, gently lowering him onto the pillow.

He did not sleep well that night, in and out of quiet and rest, moans of what sounded like pain, though it was impossible to pinpoint. Faye tried to sleep on the couch but woke in the chair next to his bed when Thomas cast a line of ache into the room pinked with sunrise.

“Fiadh,” he said, smiling as if he had reunited with a bold, brash child with strong arms who could stand up to boys, who could row the little punt, who did not live to smoke a cigarette or kiss a boy or sail to America. He said it over and over, wistfully, pleading, scales on his eyes.

“I’m right here, Papa,” she said. “I’m right here.”

“Rose of all Roses!” he said. “Rose of all the world.”

“Yes, Papa.” Faye pulled a book of poetry from the shelf, scanned the pages for the poem he was remembering, the one about dim tides hurled upon wharves of sorrow, a sweet far bell, the same white stars.

“I have it, Papa,” she said, her hand on his.

She read to him in distilled light, waiting with him for the angels.

“Fiadh. Macushla,” he said, his voice small.

When he fell back to sleep, Faye called William. “Come this morning. Bring everyone.”

Faye pushed the breezy curtain aside at the sound of cars in the drive.

The reflection on the windshield of William’s truck—trees beginning to bud, patches of blue in a gray sky—made it hard to see inside.

She raised her hand, fingers spread, like she was putting it to prison glass.

Maeve’s red sedan pulled in behind William, who was out of the truck now.

Maeve’s husband, Sam, took Dylan from the back seat, and the four of them walked toward the house.

The front door opened quietly, reverently even.

Dylan’s head was on Sam’s shoulder. Faye hugged Maeve, touched Sam’s arm, pecked her grandson’s cheek.

“He had a rough night. He’s resting now, kind of in and out. ”

“Ahhh,” Thomas said weakly. “What have we here?” His eyes were open, still lit.

“You have visitors,” Faye said.

Maeve and her little family went to Thomas’s bedside. William hung back with Faye.

“No Molly?” she asked.

William shook his head. “I tried. She slept at Jonie’s last night. She said she didn’t want to come. I didn’t want to force her.”

“She understands, though, right? You made her understand?” Faye asked.

“It’ll be worse for her if he dies and she doesn’t come.

We can’t stop this. I wish she wouldn’t be so—” Faye stopped herself.

She knew her criticism wasn’t helpful, but Molly’s anger at everything was exhausting.

William told Faye to stop trying to change Molly.

“Let her be,” he said. “She’ll come around.

” Faye had tried every trick. Anger only fueled more anger.

Offer sympathy, and Molly screamed to stop feeling sorry for her.

And making light of her mood enraged her even more.

Whatever it was, it was certainly not funny. Nothing was funny.

“Yes, she knows,” William replied. “I told her to be home by noon. We can try again.”

Faye glanced at her watch, as if it would show the sand spilling out of what was left of her father’s life. Don’t wait too long.

Maeve’s little boy stood next to Thomas’s hospital bed, hands stiff by his side.

Maeve was only a little older than him when Jean died, and now, here she was, married with a child of her own and another on the way, though she wasn’t even showing yet.

Faye took a step closer when Thomas put his hand on the boy’s head.

“Be a good lad,” he said, managing a wink at Maeve, who bent to talk to her grandfather quietly. Sam, still a practicing Catholic, bowed his head.

Faye watched as if she were hovering over the scene. Maeve wiped her eyes, made room for William when he put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. He was so kind to the boy—the man—though, privately, he confessed he found Sam dull.

“You know,” William said, not quietly like Maeve, but in full Irish voice, “You’re probably the best friend I’ve ever had. Thomas, do you hear me? Thank you for trusting me with your daughter. Thank you—” His voice cracked as he bowed his head. “For everything.”

Thomas’s eyes fluttered. He struggled to speak. “You’re a good one,” he croaked, patting William’s hand.

William nodded, blinking back tears. Thomas closed his eyes again.

Sam hoisted Dylan onto his hip. Maeve came and stood next to Faye. “I’m so sorry, Mom. This is awful.”

Faye glanced at Maeve’s belly. “How are you feeling?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

Faye swallowed. “Did you make any headway with Molly?”

“I called her last night. She told me to lay off. She’s really mad. I guess at Grandpa for dying?”

Faye knew Molly was hurting almost as much as she was. “Dad said she should be home by now. I hate to ask, but could you maybe sit with Grandpa a little more and then go check . . . ?”

“Yeah, Mom, sure,” Maeve said. “I’ll drop Sam and Dylan off then go out there.”

Faye hugged Maeve, marveling as always at how she had feared Maeve’s life would be so difficult.

But it had come together so neatly. She had a part-time job at a law firm.

She was a good wife and mother. When William had a mild heart attack, Maeve had been right there to pitch in while he recovered.

And Faye knew she tried to be a good sister, although Molly made it hard on everyone. Faye hoped it wouldn’t get worse.