The Daughter She Used To Be

by Rosalind Noonan

  “Did Dad like going to Mass?”

  “He was okay with it, but I think we both found it kind of boring. But when we added everything up, your dad figured God was going to reward us, big-time. He said, ‘God’s got to let us into heaven now.’ So when I think of it now, and I know your dad has been to church a lot of times since then, I’m thinking that God will be happy to have your dad in heaven. He was a good person, plus he went to Mass a zillion times.”

  She looked down to see if her story had helped Grace feel better, but found that she was asleep. “God bless you, Grace Sullivan.”

  There was no way the two of them could sleep on the sofa, and she didn’t want to wake the girl, so she eased Grace onto the couch and plodded into the girl’s bedroom. “Ten again,” she said, as she crawled under the pink and purple comforter. It was like a trip to Disney World, falling asleep in a room that reminded her of a box of candy hearts.

  She awoke during the night to a tapping on the window. Squinting in the darkness, she tried to make out the details there. Was that a bush, or ... a person?

  A man, she thought, sitting up in bed. Though the window was across the room, it felt as if he could reach right through and grab her.

  She gasped, pulling the covers up to her chin, but the man waved his arms, smiling, and fear drained from her as she recognized her dad. It was only her father.

  She tossed the covers aside and began to slide out of the bed, but her father’s face hardened, the lines beside his eyes becoming dark grooves, the line of his jaw turning to steel until he was not her father at all.

  The sinister gleam in his eyes told her she was in trouble.

  No! She tried to get away, run and hide, but she was frozen there, stiff with panic as he lifted a shiny pistol and fired through the window.

  The shots jolted her awake.

  She was rolling back and forth in the twin bed, clutching her chest, gasping for air.

  A dream ... it was all just a dream.

  She was safe in Grace’s pink and purple candy heart room with the night-light burning by the door and the shade drawn over the window.

  Fear still beat a steady tattoo in her chest. That familiar nightmare that had plagued her since childhood. How many times had she awakened from the horrible vision of a man staring into her room, penetrating her soul? A few times she’d been able to change him back to her father and convince herself that the dream was innocuous, but too often he was a menacing, terrifying figure who sent gunfire ripping into her chest.

  She used to wake up wailing, and Lucy, in the next bed, was such a heavy sleeper, she didn’t even stir. Sometimes Brendan had come in to console her from the room next door. Other times she had made the steep climb to her parents’ room upstairs—anything to get away from the wicked man in the window—and she had crawled into bed between Ma and Dad.

  Fear still tugged at her as she pushed the comforter away and hunched on the edge of the bed. Whom did she fear? What was she running from?

  Death?

  Well, she could run, but no one could hide forever.

  She took a deep breath and slid out of bed to go check on Grace.

  Chapter 29

  The long black limousine sat waiting for them in the funeral home parking lot. From the shiny chrome and the driver in a dark suit, Peg Sullivan suspected it had cost Sarah a pretty penny. Normally she didn’t abide luxuries like this, but she wasn’t going to complain and hurt Sarah’s feelings. “Would you look at this? Plush leather seats, and three of them?” Peg tapped Bernie’s arm. “It’s pretty grand for transportation.”

  “Haven’t you ridden in a limo before, Mom?” Bernie asked. “What about when you and Dad got married?”

  “Oh, there was no money for limos back then. No one had money. You got married in the church, then went down to the church basement for punch and cookies.” Peg frowned and hooked an index finger over her lips. She tended to ramble on when she was nervous, and today she was sick with nerves and sorrow, but she was determined not to go on like a chatterbox. She wanted to have some semblance of dignity for her boy’s funeral.

  “Nana, we’re right behind you, in case you’re wondering,” Grace said from the next seat.

  “We right behind you, Nana,” Maisey echoed.

  Peg turned to see Grace, Sarah, and Maisey buckling in behind her. “There you are. Got your own seat, I see.”

  In the third row, Sully’s mother edged onto the seat. “Oh, la-dee-dah!” she said as she scooted in. Deb and Mary Kate sat on either side of her. Meanwhile, James and Sully were outside talking with the driver, staying out in the cold till the very last minute.

  “You know, Mary Kate,” Peg called back, “there’s room for Tony.”

  “Oh, not Tony!” Granny Mary lamented. “He gave me a bloody nose last week.”

  “I seriously doubt that, Mary.” Peg didn’t mind Mary’s outbursts, but sometimes she worried that she was upsetting the little ones, who still couldn’t decipher fact from fiction.

  “Do you want to call Tony’s cell?” Peg asked. She worried that her daughter was being too rash, cutting off her husband of twenty-some years just because of some petty misbehavior. Granted, Tony liked his beers and she herself had seen him flirting, but it was not the first time a gal’s husband had made a mistake. She thought Mary Kate should give him a second chance.

  “He’ll be fine on his own, Ma.”

  Doors opened and closed again, and now James was in the backseat and Sully was beside her.

  “Brendan got a beautiful day,” Sully said. “Sunny but cold.” He wore sunglasses, which was uncharacteristic of her Sully, but she understood why a man needed to protect his dignity on a day like today. She still believed that the eyes were the mirror of the soul, and on days like this, the soul needed to have its shades drawn.

  The driver said something to Sully, called him sir, and they were off, rolling down Bell Boulevard in their fancy limo.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Gracie asked from the back, which made Bernie grab Peg’s wrist and bite her lip. “I mean, where’s the car with his coffin?”

  “The hearse,” Sarah said. “It’s following behind us. That’s why the driver is going so slowly.”

  As they approached the first intersection, there was a flurry of flashing lights, and at first Peg thought it was an accident. But no ... it was only cops there, blocking traffic from the intersection so that they could go through. Two motorcycle cops and a patrol car peeled away from the edges and fell into place in front of their limo, and suddenly they were riding along with a police escort—an impressive one, at that.

  “Would you look at that,” Peg said under her breath.

  “That’s how we do it, Peg.” Sully bit his lips together and turned away toward the window.

  She worried about him, now more than ever. Oh, there’d been a bad spell six years ago when he’d had to leave the job. When you do something for upwards of fifty years, it begins to define you, and then, when you become the expert on it, they take it away. That was how Sully felt when it was time to retire, God bless him. But he had moved on. He’d come up with the idea of the coffee shop when he’d walked by the empty store across from the precinct. The rent was reasonable, and the landlord, a fellow who was thrilled to rent to an ex-cop, was willing to give him a break if he put some money into renovating. One step fell into place after another, and quick as you could snap your fingers, Sully’s Cup was born.

  That coffee shop had saved Sully’s life. Too many of his friends on the job had retired to their Barcaloungers and eaten their way to depression and heart attacks. But Sully had carved out a new niche for himself, finding work that made the most of his social gift while keeping him close to the cop business he so loved.

  Peg stared out the window at the lines of cars with flashing lights that blocked Northern Boulevard, a major thoroughfare in Queens.

  “Why are all the police out there?” Grace asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “They’re stop
ping the traffic so that we can get by,” Sarah explained. “It’s out of respect for Daddy. Because he gave his life for this city.”

  “Oh.”

  “Your daddy was a hero, girls,” Sully said. “A real hero.”

  “Daddy was a superhero!” Maisey announced, lightening the mood.

  Peg touched Sully’s knee, but his attention was focused on the police activity outside. He was still so attached to the cop life, but now, most nights, he talked about closing up the shop. She hoped it was just talk, but she understood how the shooting could ruin his love for the shop he had built. That gunman had taken more than three lives; he’d wounded this city.

  There was a big holdup crossing Seventy-third Avenue, and Peg couldn’t quite make out what the problem was. As the limo rolled closer, though, she saw the sea of uniforms, of men and women in dark blue lined up maybe ten deep along the left side of the road.

  “Good Lord, look at all those cops.”

  There were hundreds of them ... maybe thousands.

  “New York State Police, Dad,” James said.

  “I see them,” Sully said. “And Nassau County. Jersey. But mostly NYPD. Our guys.”

  The massiveness of it, the shimmering blue wall of humanity put a knot in Peg’s throat. They stood at attention, stern and straight, though when Peg looked closely she read emotion in their faces.

  “It’s overwhelming,” Bernie said quietly.

  “Mommy, where did they all come from?” Grace asked.

  “They’re from all over, honey. Doesn’t it make you proud?”

  “It makes me feel very safe, looking at all those police officers,” Gracie said.

  They were still blocks from the church, and yet the deep band of brothers stretched on ahead of them. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Peg said.

  “This is how we do it,” Sully said, nodding.

  Once at the church, Sarah and the family were guided through the service by Richard from Hannigan’s, who moved with calm assurance. The opening processional began in the vestibule with young men from the police parade unit playing “Amazing Grace” on shrill bagpipes while the family escorted the casket down the aisle.

  Bagpipes always made Peg think of Ireland, bringing to mind rolling hills of green and smoke rising from small brown shanties. She’d been five when her parents brought her here, just around Maisey’s age. She didn’t remember much of Ireland, but she knew her parents had had a hard life there, with not enough food and no money for clothes or a place of their own. Things were better for them in America, but her parents never did get over the hard times and the war. Had they any inkling of what their family might become? A line of cops in the greatest city in the world. And now one of them struck down in the line of duty ...

  In many ways, the ceremony was an ordinary Mass, with a few extra touches. There were the readings, and a lovely eulogy done by Brendan’s friend Alex. A boy from the neighborhood, Alex talked about how Brendan was an average kid but for his kindness toward people. He talked about how Brendan used to mow one lady’s lawn for free because she couldn’t afford to pay. In junior high he was always bringing kids home for snacks, at a time when most of his friends were latchkey kids and didn’t have anywhere to go after school. “And I don’t think I ever got a chance to properly thank you, Mrs. Sullivan,” Alex said.

  Peg waved him off, touched by his appreciation, though she had always been happy to have the boys around. Better to have them supervised in her yard or basement than out on the street doing God knew what.

  Alex remembered the summer Brendan learned to surf, how his friends had trouble getting him out of the water, he loved it so much.

  “Brendan was a man who loved his family, his city, and surfing at Rockaway Beach,” Alex said. “He loved his Beach Boys tunes, and the way Sarah Spelding rocked his world. He was proud of his daughters, and said that the highlight of his day was picking up Grace and Maisey after school.”

  Such a good man her son had grown to be. Peg still hadn’t figured out how to describe her loss.

  Her eyes strayed to the plaques marking the Stations of the Cross. Such a tedious, backbreaking practice. She used to bring the children on Good Friday, and they would get down on their knees at every station. Up and down, up and down. James hated it, sulking that it was boring and asking why God cared if they said the same prayer fourteen times. But Brendan, he had cheerfully squatted down beside her. He was just a toddler, it was so long ago.

  She folded her hands together, trying to remember the prayer. When in doubt, start with the Act of Contrition. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you ...

  In the station closest to her, Mary, the Mother of God, stood by as they took Jesus down from the cross. Holy Mary lost her son, too. Holy Mary, Mother of God, how did you do it?

  Her throat was thick with sorrow, and she took a deep breath to quell the turmoil. Peg wouldn’t let the children see her cry. A mother had to be strong. It was her job to hold things together. But when she was alone in the shower, with the noise of the running water to drown out her sobs, that was when she let herself go.

  When it was time for the offering, Grace and Conner brought the wafers, water, and wine up to the altar. Peg had suggested that Grace and Maisey do the offering, thinking how lovely that would look to have the two girls together, but Sarah had thought Maisey was too young, and she was probably right. At the moment, Maisey was on her knees rearranging the hymnals in the bracket on the back of the pew. Normal for a child that age, but Sarah tugged her hand and had her sit down. Oh, it was a long day for all of them.

  After communion, as everyone sat back, the organist played the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.” That was a sweet surprise. Peg closed her eyes and saw her son taking off for the beach in that old rust-bucket van with his surfboard in the back and his radio blasting from the open windows. Those windows stayed down all summer because the air conditioner never did work in that old clunker.

  Although Brendan had claimed the Beach Boys as his kind of music, most of their songs had come out in the sixties, when Peg and Sully were a young couple.

  I know this song, Peg thought. I know it well.

  She hummed along, thinking of the words to the chorus: “God only knows what I’d be without you.”

  What would she be without her Brendan? Just as Sully had come to identify himself with the cops, Peg’s identity stemmed from her brood of children. She had loved them all equally, appreciated their talents and foibles. She could deal with Mary Kate’s know-it-all sharpness. She was able to draw James out of his quiet moods. And she didn’t feel betrayed by Lucy leaving Queens, as long as her daughter answered her calls, which she did. A mother’s love didn’t end when her child chose to swim away or swim against the current.

  But now, Brendan was gone forever, and this was something Peg was not prepared to deal with. She felt the loss like a hole in her body, a hole that wouldn’t heal.

  She pressed a hand to her lips, tamping down emotion until the wave of grief passed. The moment would pass, but the feeling that she had lost a part of herself would never go away.

  A mother’s love did not fade.

  It would be her cross to bear. The torch in her heart, burning forever.

  Chapter 30

  He was still alive.

  She hadn’t gotten a word out of him all morning, but Yvonne could see the slight rise and fall of his chest, and that meant he was breathing, thank the Lord.

  The room was quiet, but for the occasional cry of canned voices and loud commercials from Mrs. Nettle next door, who always had to sit in the afternoon and watch her stories. Soaps. You’d think people in these projects had enough drama in their lives.

  Yvonne had handled more than her share of it over the last few days. She had been forced to call in sick at the laundry so that she could take care of Peyton twenty-four-seven. Her boss was mad, threatening to dock her, but there was nothing she could do about that. Her hands were chapped from washing them
, and she was going stir-crazy cooped up in this apartment day and night. Besides that, she couldn’t let Gwen and Kiki and the baby come over, what with a dying man nearly unconscious in the bedroom. Much as Gwen liked to get her daughter and baby out of her hair, Yvonne just kept saying no, acting like she had the flu or something. And damned if Gwen wasn’t ready to send her son and daughter over anyway, flu and all, just to get a break.

  She studied him now, his sunken eyes and dry skin. His forehead was hot to the touch with fever, but not a lick of sweat. That was odd. The one time she’d helped him to the bathroom, he’d cried out in such anguish that she gave up and left an old plastic cup from a Big Gulp for him to fill. He never asked to go again.

  He was always sleeping, so there was never any time to get any food or drink into his belly. He’d lost weight, for sure, and he was a skinny one to start with.

  “Peyton? Peyton, you need to wake up and tell me what to do.” She stood over him, thinking maybe he’d open one eye and answer. “You really sick, son. I kept thinking you’d turn a corner and start getting your strength back, but something’s wrong with your shoulder that I can’t fix. You hear me?”

  No answer, not a twitch. In fact, he seemed to stop breathing.

  She leaned down close, watching his chest.

  “Oh, baby, come on and breathe now.”

  She stared hard, willing him to live, and damned if his chest didn’t rise and fall, a gentle breath, like he was sleeping. At least he wasn’t moaning in his sleep anymore. She didn’t have any real painkillers in the house and she wasn’t about to go out and buy him any street drugs that could make him worse off than he was now.

  “I wish you would wake up and answer me.” She waited. Nothing but the sound of the theme song to All My Children next door. “Peyton, this is getting serious. You wake up now and talk to your mama.”

  This time the silence scared her.

  She strode out of the room and paced the hall, hating herself for what she was considering. She didn’t want to be the one who got her baby shipped back to prison, but she didn’t want him to die, either.