The Place

by Gary Collins

  He knew Jake was asking if he had a sweetheart waiting. Michael hadn’t told him that the sweetheart who would surely have waited for him had died this very night many years ago. That while he wished his friend a Merry Christmas on this night, the consummate celebration of Christian birth, it was also a night of mourning for Michael.

  20

  Ruth and Michael never kissed with a stile between them again. They didn’t have to. Two days after the incident with Nate Osmond and Ruth’s father, her father gave her the choice. “Stop seeing that ’eathen Catholic and remain under my roof. Or keep company with the blaggard and leave.”

  Ruth packed her mother’s faded portmanteau and a small suitcase and was leaving to marry Michael when her mother confronted her. She told her she couldn’t understand how Ruth could make such a decision. To leave her house, the one she was born and raised in, all for the sake of a Catholic lout. “Catholic he may be, but he is not a lout, Mom. Michael is a wonderful young man, and I love him dearly. And he loves me enough to marry me.”

  “Marry you? You’ll soon find that marriage and love are not companions.” Her mother was furious.

  “Why did you and Dad marry, then, if not for love?”

  “We had to. . . . How dare you ask me such a thing? Your father is right, that bloody Catholic has addled yer brain.”

  “Michael and I have not sinned, Mother!”

  Ruth’s mother looked at her in shock, knowing what her anger had nearly divulged.

  “’Tis a simple enough question for a daughter to ask, Mom. Do you and Dad love each other?”

  “What a thing to ask! Why . . . we’re married. I . . . we . . . are Christian. We love all people.”

  “All except Catholic people?”

  “The minister says to ‘get ye out from among ’em.’”

  “Them, Mom? Who are they?”

  “Why, unbelievers, non-Christians.”

  “Michael is a believer, Mom, as you put it. He is a Christian, too.”

  “Christian? A Catholic? Only Protestants are Christian. What has that b’y been telling you? You’ve got a lot to learn about religion, my chil’.” Ruth’s mother was incensed. Ruth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She couldn’t believe what her mother and father believed.

  “Yes, Mom, you’re right, I do have a lot to learn. I never knew how much till now. I’ll have a good teacher.”

  Ruth picked up her bags and was about to leave when her mother cried out. “Oh, Ruth! Please don’t leave me. ’Tis only a church t’ing. Bloody church! I don’t understand any of it. Got no schoolin’. I just does what yer father says. I don’t know if I love yer father, Ruth, but I loves you to me ’eart.”

  “I know you do, Mom. I love you, too. I thought I loved Dad, too. Turns out religion changed that feeling for me. I pity you both.” Ruth walked out the door.

  Her mother followed her outside. Looking around to see if her husband was watching them, she asked tearfully, “When will I see you again?”

  “You can come over the ridge to visit any time. Michael has an uncle who has moved to New York workin’ the high steel. When we marry we’ll be movin’ into his house. We’ll have our own place. You can come and help me set the place in order.”

  Ruth was excited at the prospect, but her mother hung her head and wept all the more. “He’ll not allow it. Already told me so. You are not to darken his door, nor me yours.” She moved close to Ruth and whispered, “I slipped my ol’ wedding dress into your bag.” Looking across the garden, she saw Michael waiting outside the stile. ”He has come fer you, then?”

  “Yes, Mother, Michael has come for me.” Ruth was crying, too, now that the time for parting had come. Her father, knowing she was leaving, had left. “I’ll come to see you, Mom, whenever I can. I promise.”

  “He’ll only allow you as far as the stile, my love.”

  “Then I’ll come as far as the stile, Mom.”

  Ruth walked away from her home and her mother and toward the man she loved. She passed her things over the stile to Michael, then looked back from a ways down the narrow lane. Her mother was still watching. Ruth waved to her, but there was a stile between them.

  Two days later they were married in the Catholic church. None of Ruth’s family came. A few of her friends did. The old priest who married them looked like a saint from a Bible picture. He welcomed her into the church and blessed their bond most sincerely. Michael’s family welcomed her just as sincerely. A wedding meal was provided, and a few drinks of ’shine were passed around. There was accordion music and a dance that went on until midnight.

  Michael and Ruth spent their wedding night in a featherbed. There was a lamp burning low on the highboy. Ruth wanted him to dout the light.

  “No, my heart!” Michael whispered passionately. “First night for us will not be in darkness. The glow from the kerosene lamp will fall on your beauty like sun’s first blush on a morning rose.”

  “Oh, Michael Kelly! The things you do say!” Ruth whispered back.

  A draft of wind, gentle as a swallow’s wing, found its way through a seam in the window sash and set the flame to fluttering as soundless as the loving shadows on the ceiling. The wind rustling through the trees and the eaves of the old house were like music. And Ruth, enamoured by love, was enthralled by the sound of the music, as intricate and delicate as the shawled lace that had been removed from her shoulders. And the trembling bride, having experienced the first swelling note, waited for the rhapsody. When dawn found them in blissful sleep, their love was consummated.

  True to her word, Ruth went often up over the ridge to her home place to visit her mother. Without thinking about her father’s rule, she attempted to climb the stile, and her mother came running across the garden and stopped her. Her mother had changed. She looked crestfallen and pleaded with Ruth to come back to her own place. Ruth’s mother looked hard at the ring of gold on her finger. “I’ve lost ya, Ruth, my love,” she cried, leaning on the stile that separated them.

  “No, Mom, you have not lost me. You can gain a son-in-law if you’d let it.” Her mother, whose eyes were still glued to the ring, was shaking her head. Ruth’s eyes followed her mother’s, and she said with pride, “’Tis Michael’s great-grandmother’s ring, Mom. She and her husband came here from Ireland to escape the Great Hunger.”

  Her mother gasped and said through fingers that clutched her face, “Black Irish? My daughter married to a Black Irish!”

  “Black Irish? Do you even know what the term means, Mom?”

  “I . . . well . . . ah, yer father says ’tis cause of their black deeds against us Protestants.” Her mother plainly didn’t have the answer.

  Ruth provided it. “’Tis naught to do with their deeds, Mom. It is wonderfully historical! It involves your history and the history of all around here. Protestant as well as Catholic. About the Spanish Armada, in the sixteenth century, for God’s sake, being wrecked on the west coast of Ireland, and the belief that some of the Spaniards stayed and married into the Irish. Their genes handed down dark eyes and skin. Nothing more than that, Mom.”

  “I knows naught ’bout that stuff. Did my dress fit ya?” Ruth’s mother didn’t want to know the answer.

  “You knows naught about it because you are not willing to open your mind, Mom. And yes, the dress fit after Michael’s mother altered it to fit me. You and Dad should have come. I looked for you, hoping he could just let it all go for that day, at least. For me.”

  “He will never let it go. The Orange Lodge is his life. More of his belief than the Church itself. He will not change. Too stubborn fer that, he is.”

  “He doesn’t have to change completely, Mom. Just bend a bit. For my sake, at least. Michael is waiting up in the droke. I have to go.” Ruth reached for her mother’s hand across the stile. “I wish there wasn’t a fence between us, Mom.”

  “But the fence keeps t
he roaming animals out, my love.”

  “No, Mom, the fence keeps the ignorance in.” And knowing her mother wouldn’t understand, Ruth squeezed her fingers in farewell and walked down the lane to reunite with her Black Catholic.

  21

  The months went by, and Michael and Ruth flourished in their new home. They were happy. Ruth’s visits with her mother, always over the stile, were less frequent. Her mother didn’t come to see her. And in all that time, Ruth had no conversations with her father. She saw him a couple times leaving the house, almost fleeing so that he wouldn’t have to speak to her. It saddened Ruth.

  But her love for Michael prevailed. Then, twelve months after they were wed, she discovered she was with child, and she made even fewer walks up over the ridge. The child in her womb grew heavier, and Ruth didn’t walk the trail leading to her parents’ place anymore.

  December month was ushered in by snow and bitterly cold winds that kept blowing. It piled the snow in relentless drifts. Wearing snowshoes, made by the old priest, who liked working with wood when he wasn’t reading or preparing litanies, Michael went looking for a Christmas tree.

  It was Tibb’s Eve, two days before Christmas. Ruth was firm. She wanted the tree—a well-proportioned balsam fir—carried into the house on Christmas Eve night and not before. It was her family’s tradition, and Michael agreed. But the forest had collected so much snow, making travel difficult, so he decided to cut the tree in advance. Even wearing snowshoes, snow was half a leg high and made for hard going. It took a while, but he found a tree to his liking—he hoped it would be to Ruth’s—in a wooded drung a half-hour’s walk away. With his sharp axe, he cut it down.

  Ruth was right, Michael was thinking when he had settled their tree comfortably across his shoulders. They carried a wonderful scent. The thick branches all but hid his view, but with his head down, he following the tracks he had made entering the woods. He was thinking of myrrh, the third Gift of the Magi, and the significance of the birth of the Christ, when he thought he heard someone calling his name.

  Stopping and looking all around the forest, he listened but heard nothing. A raven had cawed, he thought. He resumed his walk. But there was no mistaking the sound of his name the next time he heard it. It was a man’s voice, and it was coming from the trail he was heading down. It sounded urgent. Michael shouted back.

  Even before he met up with the caller, Michael knew he was being summoned for Ruth. He cast the tree from his back and made long strides out the trail. Rounding a bend, he saw the man running toward him. He wasn’t wearing snowshoes and frequently foundered as he broke through the tracks he was following. He was making slow going. Michael was soon at his side. He recognized him as a close friend who lived next door. The fellow had stood as best man at their wedding. His name was Louis. Michael had known Louis lifelong and had never seen him excited, but Louis was excited now.

  “Ruth is in a bad way, Mike b’y. Her water is after lettin’ go. She’s screaming in pain and callin’ yer name. I run fer the midwife before I come runnin’ fer you, though. I t’ought ’twas best, Mike.”

  “You did the right thing, Louis.”

  Michael rounded his friend and went running down the narrow trail, his snowshoes clattering. Snow dislodged from laden tree branches as he brushed past them, until all Louis could see of his best friend was a ghost-like form, without feet, running frantically out the wintry path.

  The midwife was well-known to Michael and, with Ruth’s pending birth, was recently made known to Ruth as well. She was a tall woman of middle age and good proportion. The woman had brownish hair tied in a bun at the back of her long neck. Her lips were thin, and she had a stern face. But her eyes showed compassion, her voice was gentle, and despite her severe looks, she was a good woman. Her name was Katherine. Everybody in the Place called her Aunt Kitty.

  When Michael walked into the room where Ruth lay writhing on the bed, Aunt Kitty was holding Ruth’s hand, all sternness gone from her face. She appeared worried. Ruth’s face, racked in pain, brightened when she saw him, and she reached her hand out for him. Michael hurried to the opposite side of the bed. Clasping her hands in his, he kissed her fingers. They felt hot to his lips.

  “Did you bring our tree, Michael?”

  “Yes, my heart! I have brought out of the woods the best tree you have ever seen.”

  “I can smell its Christmas fragrance on your hands,” Ruth said. Smiling up at Michael, she drew his fingers to her nose and inhaled deeply. Her eyes were filling when she said, “I didn’t tell you, Michael, but I have not felt my baby move for two days and a night. She feels as dead as a killick in my womb.” Ruth had been sure she would have a baby girl. She burst into tears.

  Months ago, when she had asked Michael if he wanted a boy or girl, Ruth was surprised when he had answered, without hesitation, that he wanted a girl. They had even discussed a name for a girl child. Michael wanted her called Leah, and Ruth was agreeable. “Leah, who had tender eyes, was the daughter of Laban,” Michael had whispered his endearment. “The mother of the twelve tribes of Israel. Our daughter will look just like you, my heart, and your beauty will go on.”

  Aunt Kitty, who had heard Ruth’s lament, said quietly to her, “Not to worry, my love. Some come leaping and some come sleeping.” She dabbed her fingers on her lips and made the sign of the Cross over Ruth’s belly.

  These were the shortest days of the year, and Michael fitted the lamps as Tibb’s Eve lost its light. The lamp with the short chimney alight in his hand and pushing shadows ahead of him, he climbed the stairs to the room where Ruth laboured. Aunt Kitty sat on the bed by her side. She had not left Ruth’s side all day. Michael placed the lamp on a small dresser covered with a white doily beside the bed on Ruth’s side. He moved to the window facing the bay and was closing the curtains when Ruth spoke to him. Her voice was not strong, but it was steady for all that.

  “No, Michael. Last light. First star. Remember?”

  Michael drew the curtain again. Turning to her, he said with a quivering chin, “I remember, my heart.”

  Aunt Kitty, wise to the ways of young love, moved across the room when Michael cradled his suffering wife in his arms. She picked up the knitting she always brought for the wait of birthing and let them be.

  It was Ruth who had come up with the phrase on one of the first nights of their courting. They were nights of discovery for both of them. Some of the mysteries, like those of buttons and hidden flesh, were forbidden and had to be overcome. They were strolling the lane that led inexorably toward the stile in the fence were they must part. The sun had long gone to its westing, and last light was all but gone from the sky when Michael showed her Venus, the first light. And when he told her the star was named for the goddess of love and light, pointing out that it didn’t twinkle like other stars but issued a steady, bright, silvery glow, Ruth was fascinated by it.

  “Is it visible every evening?”

  “Every evening when the clouds allow it,” Michael explained.

  “Then we will look for Lady Venus every night, Michael. And because it immediately follows the last light we can call it . . .” Ruth thought for a second. “Oh! Last light. First star. It sounds romantic and will be our secret. What do you think?”

  Michael looked her full in the eyes. “I am already envious of last light. And I think the first star should be called Ruth to honour my Venus.”

  “Why, Michael Kelly, the things you do say.” And Michael had hushed her with a kiss.

  Ruth looked at the window. “Did you see it tonight, Michael? Last light, first star?”

  “Yes, my heart,” he lied.

  It was snowing outside. Last light had faded away almost without notice, and no stars could be seen. Suddenly, Ruth’s entire body seemed to clench with a powerful contraction. She cried out in great pain. Michael tried to hold her, but the contraction was so great, Ruth pulled from his arms. Aunt Kitt
y was by her side in an instant.

  The hours of agony went by hard for Ruth. Her body convulsed. Her legs contorted until she collapsed upon the pillow with the strain of it. But no baby came. And when that interminable Tibb’s Eve night melted into the first hours of Christmas Eve, her soft face was draped in sweat as she passed mercifully into a troubled sleep. Aunt Kitty motioned Michael away from the bed.

  “There is naught I can do, my son,” she began, anticipating his first question. Michael was crestfallen. He thought Aunt Kitty could heal anything, and he told her so. “Some things are beyond my simple keen, Michael, my love. This birth is one of them. Accordin’ to the records I’ve kept on the Farrells of me Bible, I have helped with the birt’in’ of 207 babies. Two of them on this same blessed day, the eve of the birth of Christ. Only one of them have I seen as severe as this one.”

  “Severe? What do you mean, Aunt Kitty?” Michael could barely keep his voice down. Ruth was stirring again, the brief lull from pain all but done.

  “What I mean, Michael, is the child is—well, it’s, er—coming stern first. And I cannot turn her.” Aunt Kitty gave him a sobering look. “There is more, my son. I wish to God I did not have to tell ’e sech news. The child in her womb will be stillborn.” She lowered her gaze from Michael’s stricken face.

  “Stillborn. You mean . . .” Michael couldn’t say the word.

  “Yes, my son, the child is dead. Has been for days, I believe. I cannot turn her. God knows I’ve tried these many hours. She needs a doctor’s skill. There is naught else I can do. I’m sorry, Michael.” Aunt Kitty began to cry.

  “Her?”

  “Yes, Michael, ’tis a girl.”

  “Leah! ’Tis as we hoped! But ’tis still all right. You told her ‘some come leaping and some come sleeping.’ I heard you say it, Aunt Kitty!”