The Favorite Daughter

by Patti Callahan Henry

  It was Rosie and Sadie they worried about most—losing Grandy and moving away from their dad into a new home, both within a few days, would be overwhelming for anyone. It was all too much, Hallie had said over and over. Too much. But they’d surrounded the girls; let them cry and held them close. Now they ran through the crowd of people handing out the poppers that were meant for a different kind of celebration, for a birthday party. The guests took the brightly colored party favors and patted the little girls on the head as if they were puppies.

  Colleen scanned the room for her sister and brother and found them on opposite sides of the pub. Each time she tried to move, another person came to offer condolences or tell a story about Gavin. Over and over again, as Colleen balanced her weighted arm with the cast, she thought of life’s tenuous threads, of the easy snap of that thread that tied us to the people and places we love the most. In the middle of things, when all was stable, it felt like nothing would ever change. But it always did and always does and always will.

  The band played on as background music one hardly noticed above the din of voices until it stopped and the room fell silent. Yes, it was the absence of something—music or a loved one—that brought one to attention, that raised the gaze and focused the mind on the present moment.

  Silence shimmered in the room and a deep, resonant male voice began to sing “The Lark in the Clear Air.” “Dear thoughts are in my mind and my soul soars enchanted . . .”

  Time paused, breath slowed and the room filled with the presence of Gavin Donohue. Colleen scanned the crowd for the source of the singing and found Bob standing on the makeshift stage with his eyes closed and a hand over his heart. His voice rose a cappella above those gathered. It seemed to soar above the building and higher still. She’d never known Bob possessed this gift—how much hidden and unknown remained to be revealed?

  When Bob finished the song, the room broke into applause with hollers and stomping feet, and although the gratitude was for his singing, it was also for the life and gift of Gavin Donohue.

  Shane’s voice then reverberated through the room as he spoke into the microphone. “I’d like to give everyone a chance to speak if they’d wish. But first, my sister Colleen will say a few words.”

  The sounds of murmuring voices and clinking glassware fell away. The room became as silent as in the hours after closing when Colleen had walked through the pub with Dad as he locked up.

  She froze. Hallie had made a schedule for the memorial. Music. Food. Speeches. And yes, Colleen knew she was supposed to represent the family and speak for all of them, but now she had no idea why she’d agreed. She hadn’t written a speech. She hadn’t thought much about it past the idea that she would tell everyone how much she loved her dad, how much they all did. But now that wasn’t enough. She wanted to honor him. She wanted everyone in the room to understand who he was in the world, how his very presence was a spark of light, a wave of wonder.

  What would she say now that she knew she had a mother she never met, and a dad she understood in deeper ways; now that she understood the story-rivers running beneath her dad’s life, how the invisible was as influential as the visible? How the river had been his metaphor, his internal landscape surging behind their home in external form.

  “Colleen?” Shane’s voice made the microphone squeal, a high-pitched sound that shook Colleen from her frozen place. She walked toward the front, winding her way through the crowd, seeing no one, hearing nothing, her ears buzzing with fear.

  Shane hugged her and said, “You’ve got this.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t. I’m not ready. I’ll write it down later.”

  “Sometimes we have to do things because we must, even when we don’t believe we’re ready,” he said.

  Colleen took the microphone from Shane and stared out over the crowd, her throat constricting and her eyes burning with both fear and fatigue. This was a terrible idea. Then her gaze stopped scanning, snagged and stayed on Beckett’s gaze. Yes, she’d been looking for him, moving toward him instead of away, and spoke to him.

  “Our dad, Gavin Aengus Donohue, was a bright light in this world. There is no speech I can give and no story I can tell that will allow you to know who he fully was, that can convey his infinite qualities. For weeks now, my sister, brother and I have been gathering stories about Dad, wanting to surprise him at this party, at his birthday party. And what I have come to see is that he was loved by everyone he knew. He was the same man and yet somehow a little bit different with each of you. The stories we collected have shown us that his integrity and his grace and his charm were widely shared and real, and yet there were parts of himself that only we, his family, knew, and more still that were secret only unto himself. You each carry your own Gavin Donohue with you.

  “I’d like to share a few stories about what made Dad special to me.” She had no time to thoughtfully choose what she shared, but the stories flowed out of her: of how Gavin took his kids to work and taught them the pub trade; of how he showed them how to fish and what spending Sundays together on the water meant to his wife, his children and grandchildren; of his bad jokes and his ill timing and of his abiding love for his family and the river that ultimately carried him away. And then she told them of her great love for him.

  “I am sure that for all our life, my brother and sister and I will miss him as achingly as we do now. But his life runs through us just as the river does this town.”

  Colleen put down the microphone, set it on the stool. There came the hushed sound of muffled sobs and murmur of voices. Shane dropped his arm over her shoulder and pulled her close as he lifted the microphone. “If anyone else . . .”

  But already a line had formed, those wanting to tell their version of Gavin, wanting to share who he was in the particulars of their life. Same man, infinite facets.

  An hour or more passed as men and women took turns at the microphone. They talked of how wonderful Gavin and Elizabeth were together, of their teamwork and spirit. And with each telling Gavin’s soul shone brighter, his presence became known. His children were struck again and again that no matter how much they knew him, there was so much they did not know. There was the woman he saved from an abusive man at the pub; the money he gave to local charities; the hours he spent listening to patrons’ troubles.

  When the speeches were finally finished and the singer reclaimed the microphone, Colleen stood between Hallie and Shane. “Did we really know him?” she asked.

  “Of course we did,” Hallie said. “We knew him as our dad, as the man we loved. We knew him as ours.”

  “But no one can ever really belong to just you. Listen to these people.” Colleen pointed at the stage. “Maybe deep down we’re all unknowable, even to those who love us most.”

  Shane pulled her close. “Maybe. But we knew his heart and that means we knew him.”

  “Know him,” Colleen corrected Shane. “Because he is always here and he is always in us.”

  “Yes.” Hallie glanced around the room and then back at her siblings. “Have you seen the girls?”

  “Last I saw them they were devouring the shamrock cupcakes,” Shane said and pointed to the empty table at the far end of the room.

  “Just great, now a sugar high.” Hallie wandered off to find her daughters as Shane went to check on the back bar.

  Colleen stood alone in the middle of the crowd, feeling the heat and pulse of grief. Voices blended until one stood out. “Lena.”

  Colleen turned to face Walter Littleton, his face twisted in grief, his eyes red with both whiskey and regret—quite the combination, as she well knew. “Walter.”

  “I am so sorry,” he said, wiping sweat from his forehead with a crumpled napkin. “I’m sorry you lost such a great man. But I lost him, too, Lena; I loved him.” His voice was broken, fragments of it cracking with the words.


  “It’s the whiskey talking,” Colleen said flatly.

  “No.” He shook his head. “You don’t have to punish me anymore. I loved your dad and I am so, so sorry.”

  “Loved?” Colleen stepped closer to him, and he didn’t smell like alcohol, but only of sweat and dirt. “How can you say that?”

  “Because I do. Because I did.” He took a step back. “I’m not the monster you think I am, Lena.”

  Somewhere below the clammy and oppressive grief for her dad, Colleen felt a sense of sadness for this broken man losing his wife and daughters in ways he hadn’t expected. “Not a monster,” she said quietly. “But a man who is capable of causing great pain in one small family. A selfish man.”

  He cringed, his eyes closed as though she’d hit him in the face with her words. “I know, but I’m not going anywhere.” He exhaled and spoke quietly. “You’ve never let me explain what happened . . . what . . .”

  Colleen closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at Walter, but his voice continued.

  “I hadn’t had any plans to leave you at the altar. I loved you. I might even still love you if you weren’t so merciless to your sister. But you know, and I know, and you have to admit, we are a better fit—me and Hallie. You just wanted . . . so much.”

  “What is wrong with wanting so much?” Colleen opened her eyes and stared at the man she might have married and felt a flood of relief that she hadn’t. “No! Don’t answer that. Not here. Not now.”

  “Someday?” he asked quietly. “Let me try and explain.”

  She shook her head. “No. Not ever. It’s past that time, and explanations don’t matter so much anymore. It can’t change things. It can’t unbreak my heart, or Hallie’s, or bring back Dad.”

  Walter rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes so tightly that Colleen could see where the lines of age would eventually appear. “You’re right.” And with that he walked away.

  Colleen remembered words of C. S. Lewis she once read, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” And for the first time she understood it was fear, quivering and moving below her chest. Fear of the future without her dad. Fear of loss. Fear of unknowing. It took her breath and kept it captive beneath her throat until she was dizzy and ran for the door, needing air.

  Outside, the crowd just as thick, Colleen felt a hand on her back and turned to Beckett. “Lean on me,” he said.

  And she did, and she caught her breath. “It’s so final,” she said. “There’s no more ‘I’ll fix it later. I’ll call him later.’”

  “I know.”

  She rested on his chest and waited for her breathing to slow.

  “You know,” he said, “I told you it wouldn’t be ready but I did have a surprise for tonight. For your dad.”

  “What’s that?” She lifted her head.

  “The state did offer approval for the historic site status of the pub. I was going to surprise him.”

  “This is . . .” She stopped, unable to find the words she wanted or needed. “It’s wonderful. And sad. And a fitting tribute even though he’s not here. Thank you, wonderful Beckett. Thank you.”

  Beckett nodded, emotion clouding his face as he took her hand and they eased their way back inside. The microphone screeched and a high-pitched voice broke a soprano note and Colleen stopped. “What the . . . ?”

  Beckett laughed. “It appears the speeches are over, but the songs are not. Patrons are each singing what they believe was Gavin’s favorite song.”

  “Well, this is not it.” Colleen felt laughter bubble up as Winnie Byers sang “Amazing Grace” in a key it had never been sung in before.

  And then came “Danny Boy” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” and “Molly Malone.” Not one of them Dad’s favorite song, but what each friend wanted to sing in his honor. Each song was worse than the one before until the band took back the microphone.

  Later, in the back room, Colleen found Hallie hiding from the crowd, her hands covering her face as she silently cried, her shoulders moving up and down in the same but opposite motion of laughter. Colleen went to her sister, wrapped her arms around her. “I know. I know.”

  “I don’t know how to do this, Lena. I don’t know how.” Hallie looked up at her. “What now?”

  “I don’t know either. But look what an amazing party you gifted our dad.”

  “It was supposed to be a birthday party! And so many things have gone wrong. The banquet people didn’t show up with the green chair covers, the balloons were never delivered and my girls gave out the poppers too early. Nothing is right.”

  “Everything is right. Everything except Dad’s absence.” Colleen held her sister tight and regretted every moment she had been away. What a waste, a death in its own right.

  Soon, the night grew long into darkness, not one guest wanting to leave this paradoxically joyous and grief-filled place where Gavin’s presence was so strongly felt, not wanting to leave even as the food ran out.

  Beckett whispered in Colleen’s ear, “You doing all right?”

  “I think I am.” She pressed against his strong body, against the solid goodness of him, and felt no need to run. “Can one be emptied out and filled at the same time?”

  “Yes.” He kissed her forehead and held her closer. “Absolutely.”

  Still later, there was the hullabaloo when Garrett Miller passed out at the bar, and when a woman tried to take over the Guinness tap. There were jokes told and more hugs and stories than Colleen could count and file away—all of them blending into one.

  Finally, after the pub had emptied, in the shadowed time between one day and the next, Colleen, Hallie and Shane gathered together preparing to head for home, taking Rosie and Sadie, who had fallen asleep on the benches of the corner booth.

  Once their vehicles had arrived in the Donohue driveway, and the little girls had been tucked into bed, in silent assent the three siblings walked outside, past the broken tree house to the edge of the dock to sit. It was Hallie who said what they’d all been thinking. “Dad will never be able to read his memory book.”

  Colleen stared out over the water, where one day soon they would scatter his ashes. “He didn’t have to read it; he lived it.”

  Hallie cleared her throat to break through the grief gripping them all. “It’s been killing me, trying to remember the last thing he said to me. You”—she turned to Colleen—“had these profound last moments and conversations with him and I couldn’t remember. And I felt like I never would.”

  “And you did?” Shane asked Hallie.

  “I did. But it wasn’t until I quit trying so hard and realized that I might never remember. I thought so much of how it must feel for Dad to lose memories, to be so lost. He had to try hard to remember things, only to realize he couldn’t, and not just little things but things that mattered.”

  Colleen watched her sister carefully. “What did he say to you?”

  Hallie paused. “I said good night to him before tucking the girls into bed. I told him I hoped one day you’d be able to forget about the church and the kiss. He said that no, you should never forget. That would be the worst thing because it’s memories that make us who we are. Forgiving perhaps, but no, not forgetting—he was nearly shouting—never the forgetting.”

  “So what was the last thing?” Colleen almost whispered.

  Hallie lifted her face to the stars. “‘Never the forgetting.’”

  Shane began to hum “The Lark in the Clear Air.” “I researched the song,” he said after a while. “I was going to tell the story at the party.” He stared off over the river. “It was a poem first, written by Sir Samuel Ferguson. His wife . . . get this”—he paused for effect—“was part of the Guinness family. The poem was then put to music on a harp to an old Irish air called ‘Kitty Nowlan.’ The song has as rich a history as Dad did.”

  “That is so beau
tiful,” Colleen said.

  “As Dad once told me,” Shane said, “‘my body will live longer without food than I can live without meaning.’ Maybe he knew that. Deep down maybe he went out on that boat . . .”

  “Don’t say it, Shane.” Colleen rested her hand on his leg. “We can’t guess. We can’t know. Don’t.”

  “We were prepared to deal with taking care of him.” Hallie’s voice sounded choked. “We had our lists and I’d moved in.” Her voice broke at the end and Colleen knew what they had prepared for, and she would have chosen that, chosen that deterioration over this loss. But would their dad?

  In silence together they returned to the house, to their dad’s house, to sleep and then to wake to another day filled with his absence.

  * * *

  • • •

  The next morning, their eyes swollen and bleary, the sisters sat on the back stoop of the house under the fluttering awning, watching Shane begin the tree house renovation. They’d offered to help him, but he’d shooed them away. The pub would be closed for at least three days, and Shane had decided that now was the time to mend and replace what had been destroyed by years of neglect.

  Rosie and Sadie ran through the yard perfecting their cartwheels.

  Colleen slipped her hand into her sister’s. “Dad’s ashes,” she said.

  “We’ll have them tomorrow.” Hallie said this so quietly it might have been a secret. “Shane picked out a beautiful wooden box for now, until we decide when to . . .”

  “Scatter them.” Colleen finished the sentence for her.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it and I think we should wait.” Colleen released her sister’s hand and shifted to face her.

  Hallie lifted her eyebrows. “For how long?”

  “For as long as it takes us to settle into this grief, and for all of us to be together again.”

  “Again?” Hallie broke eye contact and turned away, glancing across the water as a kayaker paddled past, disturbing the water into silvery rays of light.