Hope from the Ocean: (The Prequel to Fireflies )

by P. S. Bartlett

  “Doctor Whelan, I’m so sorry but something terrible has happened.” Polly clutched the clothing at her mid-section and leaned on the door frame.

  “Well, what is it lass? Spit it out.” He leapt to his feet.

  “It’s your uncle, Mr. Doyle. He’s dead, sir.”

  “It can’t be. I saw him only two weeks ago for Thanksgivin’. Has he been brought here?”

  “Yes, Doctor. He was brought in only minutes ago but by the time he arrived he was already deceased.” Polly lowered her head and said a brief prayer, blessed herself and left.

  Owen raced to the emergency area and followed the all-too-familiar stench to the deathbed of his uncle, covered head to toe with a white sheet. He bowed his head and pulled back the sheet and viewed the pale body of Dell Doyle. His instincts led him to take his uncle’s wrist one final time for a pulse and lean over Dell’s body and check for breath. He found neither.

  A nurse approached with a notebook. “Time of death, Doctor?”

  Owen reached into his pocket for the time. “Seven fourteen .”

  “Owen!” A familiar voice shouted to him and he turned to find his aunt rushing towards him. “Owen, he’s gone! My Dell has gone to be with the Lord.”

  Owen comforted her, motioning to the nurse to pull the sheet back into place. He walked Kathryn away from the body, down the hallway toward a small sitting area reserved for the grieving. “Tell me what happened.” He sat Kathryn down and took hold of her trembling hands.

  “He was sleepin’ in the library. I came downstairs to start my day. He…he wouldn’t wake up. I shook him hard because he has a job now and I didn’t want him ta be late. I just didn’t want him ta be late…” Her words dissolved into sobs.

  “Let me get ye a cab, Aunt Kathryn, and I’ll have them take ye to the new house to be with Ma.”

  Kathryn looked up at him, clutching her already saturated handkerchief and nodded. “Yes, yes I’ll go to Rachel.”

  Owen paid the cab driver and sent Kathryn on her way, but something drew him back to Dell’s body one last time. Head up, shoulders back, he straightened his coat and pulled out his watch and checked the time. It was if he was second guessing himself and he checked for any sign of life and found none. Dell was most certainly dead.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Doctor,” the nurse said, accompanied by a young man who’d come to take Dell’s body down to the morgue.

  “Thank ye.”

  “Will there be a cause of death for the notes, Doctor?” she asked.

  Owen stood there over the body and watched as the young man pushed the gurney out of the room.

  “Doctor?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Over-consumption of alcohol, most likely, but I’ll consult with Doctor Forrester. Thank ye, nurse. That will be all.” He flashed back to his first encounter with the intoxicated Dell and then forward, searching for any cheerful memory that could trigger even the most remote regret or grief. The only emotions he felt were sadness for his aunt, as well as relief, and the guilt was tearing at him. He granted Dell only a small amount of thanks for keeping a roof over his head for nearly a year and for his library full of books. He thanked him for Raina although he was sure that thanks lay with his aunt, and he thanked him for being so predictable. It wasn’t as if being predictable is a high quality to possess, unless you’re afraid of the unknown and prefer familiar things rather than actually living your life. Unless, like so many, you have secrets and unseen demons and you fear to live at all.

  Owen turned and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window of a door and stared at himself for a few moments, barely recognizing the man looking back. I am Owen Whelan, he thought. I’m the son of Rachel Whelan. I’m a young, Irish-American doctor. I am not afraid of livin’ and I’m not afraid of dyin’. I am who and where I am supposed to be.”

  He ran his hand over his head and continued back to his office. He passed Polly’s desk and requested she make the funeral arrangements for his uncle, telling her to spare no expense. He didn’t know if Dell had any real friends but every man had the right to a decent funeral. The only real funeral he’d ever witnessed was Shorty Greene’s and he expected Dell’s to be at least that decent.

  He grabbed his bag and started his journey home. He tucked the letter inside of the book and the book in his bag, knowing he’d most likely spend what remained of the day reading it. When he reached his new home, Mae Brown, the housekeeper and nurse already had Kathryn stowed away in the guest room and Rachel tucked tight in her bed..

  “Ma, are ye still awake?” he asked, peeking into his mother’s room.

  “Aye, son. Come in.”

  Owen raised the lantern light and sat down in the chair next to her bed. “How was Aunt Kathryn?”

  “Heartbroken, but she’s a survivor, that one. Always was, always will be. She was already talkin’ about the funeral.”

  “I’m takin’ care a that, so don’t worry.”

  “I assured her ye would. She was afraid they wouldn’t have enough money but I eased her mind.”

  “And how are ye, Mrs. Whelan?” Owen asked, pouring her a glass of water.

  “I’m still here,” she muttered with a half-smile, lifting a handkerchief from the night table and taking the glass from Owen’s hand.

  “Ma, ye don’t need ta take those precautions with me.” He frowned.

  “I thought ye were a doctor, Owen. Ye know I’m contagious.”

  “Ma, may I ask ye a question? I’ve been longin’ ta ask for a while.”

  “As always, ye may.” She set the water down on the table, still wrapped in the handkerchief, and laid back into her pillows.

  “Have ye an idea as to how ye contracted this disease?”

  Rachel closed her eyes. “I knew ye’d ask me someday and I knew I’d have to admit what I’d been up to. It’s me own fault, ye know. Me bleedin’ heart and all just never allows me ta to mind me own business when it comes to some folk.”

  “What folk might that be?

  “When we moved down into the city, ye know I don’t socialize and get involved in things but at church, I kept hearin’ about the ghettos and the slums and poor little children.” She took a deep dragging breath and coughed a great deal.

  “Take yer time now, Ma. Better yet, tell me tomorrow,” Owen said, rising to his feet.

  “No, no. I’ll just come out with it. A few days a week, I’d take the trolley and help with the mission of the ladies. We’d take food, clothes, soap and other things to the less fortunate families and oh, there were so many. Quite a lot of them were sick and infirmed.”

  “Didn’t ye practice the things I showed ye about the germs?”

  “I’m sure I did, but there are times when ye forget about yerself and before ye know it, yer up to elbows in women and children who have no hope. It didn’t leave much time for washin’ up. I’d take along me gloves and me scarf but I suppose I wasn’t as diligent as I should have been.”

  Owen remembered many occasions when he’d come home late and see those gloves on the kitchen chair, and he recalled several instances when she wore a scarf around her neck in the heat of summer but never imagined questioning her about it. He felt like a fool for not thinking twice that she would like to have a life of her own or some vocation to occupy her while he was gone for hours. He might have known had he bothered to ask or even question things he noticed.

  “Owen, when I die, I don’t want ye ta be alone. I couldn’t rest knowing ye were alone or lonely.”

  “Don’t speak of that. I won’t hear of it.”

  “Please don’t be angry with me.” She coughed so hard the bed shook.

  “Ma, I’m not angry with ye. I’m angry at my selfish ways. Since we’ve been in this country, all I’ve cared about was me.”

  “Ye’re wrong. I pushed ye. I encouraged ye to follow yer dreams. Don’t blame yerself. I did what I did for selfish reasons as well.”

  “Calm down, Ma.

  I won’t have ye makin’ yer
self worse over me. I’ve done enough already.”

  “What ye’ve done is make me the most proud, happy mother in the whole world. I’ll take whatever death the good Lord gives me as long as I know I done right by ye;”

  Owen looked down at what was left of her tiny body. Her collarbone stood out in sharp relief under her thin pale skin as it draped down into the valley of her neck. She appeared a baby bird fallen from its nest. He couldn’t bare the sight of it. He pulled her blanket up to her chin and tucked her back in.

  “Ye’ve done right by me. Don’t ever doubt that. Now get some rest and don’t let Aunt Kathryn wear ye out tomorrow. I’ll have a cab take her home in the mornin’ but rest assured, she’ll be back.”

  “She’s a good-hearted soul, Owen. She truly is,” Rachel muttered, closing her eyes.

  “I know she is, Ma. I love her ta death. Now get some rest and I’ll look in on ye in the mornin’.” Owen lowered the lamp and crept out of the room. This day was over. As good and decent a woman as he’d known Rachel to be, she was much more than he ever imagined. He still believed his own selfishness the culprit of his ignorance. Although he was surprised at her confession, he wasn’t the least bit shocked. He knew her to be of the kindest of hearts and anyone with the need to protect and give as much as Rachel simply couldn’t sit around all day when there were people to be helped. Anything within her power to do was to be done, and with no excuses or illness getting in her way.

  Owen lay awake and faced her mortality. She grew worse each day and he prayed to God to let her stay with him until the New Year, as he’d prayed to keep her until Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Her disease devoured as much of him as it did her. He could feel her drifting away a little more each day and the helplessness of losing her was inconceivable to him. Rachel was the only one he truly did love. He finally understood the truth that losing love is the only way to know if it is real—yet another inevitable and painful lesson. However, it only takes losing one real love to learn this lesson. For any love that follows, you remember the sorrow of loss and that’s what will keep you holding on—just as he’d held on to Dillon until he was forced to let go. Only now did his open heart feel the depth of that loss.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Vernon’s wedding was the event of the holiday season. Owen went alone but allowed his Aunt Kathryn to convince him to purchase a brand new tailored suit for the event. She had settled back into her home and acquired two Irish setter pups to keep her company the week following Dell’s funeral—which was a solemn and sadly sparse event. If not for the usual church parishioners attending out of respect for Kathryn, the only mourners in attendance would have been the bartender from his favorite watering hole and his new boss, who may have shown to verify the death. Apparently, in the brief time Dell was employed, he’d missed quite a few days of work under numerous excuses. However, he had not yet used this one.

  Owen excused himself from the wedding festivities before midnight, although the party was in full swing, and quietly slipped out without formal goodbyes. Vernon was fully engaged in making merry with his banking friends as well as a nearly empty bottle of champagne. He had never seen Vernon intoxicated and found him amusing and still as amiable as ever. Seeing others around him in a near-equal state made him feel out of place but in this theater, the actors were still themselves, only louder. He was unaccustomed to social drinking. Until this point, imbibing wasn’t for enhancing pleasure but rather for medicating the ills of one’s conscience and circumstances.

  When he left, Owen stepped carefully in the snow, which glowed in the moonlight. This late December crystal precipitation was like dry talcum powder and it barely made a sound when he stepped on it. An occasional gust of wind blew it from the rooftops and tree branches into his face, so he pulled his scarf up to where nothing shown of him but his green eyes peeking out from beneath his hat.

  The wedding reception had been held at Vernon’s mansion, only a few homes away, but being the largest and most ostentatious home on the block, he still had a good five minute trek to reach his own more modest front door. Owen looked up at the monument to his early success and noticed the light still on the sun room. He knew Rachel would have been in bed for hours and only assumed it was her nurse or Kathryn waiting up for him.

  “Thank goodness ye’re finally home,” whispered Kathryn, helping Owen off with his overcoat.

  “Is somethin’ wrong?” he snapped back, flashing his eyes up the right side staircase toward Rachel’s room.

  “She’s had a rough night. The nurse has been in with her all evenin’.”

  “Is she still awake?”

  “No. She’s restin’ now but ye should look in on her. I wanted to wait up and let ye know, is all.” Kathryn led the way up the stairs and then pulled on his shirt sleeve to lower his cheek to her lips for a kiss goodnight. “Yer a good son.”

  Owen opened the door without making a sound and found the nurse fast asleep on the settee next to Rachel’s bed. He kept every medical instrument he needed for her care on the bureau and lifted the stethoscope and pinched it to his ears. He pulled the cool metal to his open mouth and cupped his hands around it, warming it with his breath.

  “Dr. Whelan?” the nurse whispered.

  “Aye, Mae?” he answered, lowering the stethoscope to the raised ribs of Rachel’s chest.

  “Her breathing was very poor this evening and…” She hesitated and lowered her head.

  “Out with it, now, I won’t have ye holdin’ anythin’ back from me,” he insisted.

  “There was a great deal of blood in her cough tonight. I fear she’s not faring well….”

  “Of course she isn’t farin’ well, Mae, she’s dyin’. Ye don’t need to protect me. I know the disease all too well.” He stood up, removed the apparatus from his ears and draped it around his neck. He unfastened his cufflinks, laid them on her dresser and rolled up his shirt sleeves.

  “Ye go on ta bed now, Mae. I’ll stay in here tonight.”

  Mae nodded and slipped on her shoes. “If you need me, I’ll…”

  “I know where ta find ye, lass.” He pulled the blanket from the settee and draped it over his shoulders. The room was always cool, as the cool dry air eased Rachel’s breathing. For reasons unknown to Owen, on this night the room was so cold he could see his breath. He checked every window fearing the wind had increased and a draft needed to be blocked. Whipping the blanket from his shoulders to use to dam up the cold air seeping in, he stood in the center of the room mystified when he couldn’t find the source of the draft.

  “Owen…” Rachel breathed.

  He hurried to her bed side and knelt down next to her. “Yes Ma, I’m here.”

  “I’m so tired.”

  He took her hand in his and feared her bones so frail they’d snap like dried twigs if he applied even the slightest amount of pressure. “I know, Ma. Can I get ye anythin’?”

  Rachel’s long locks had months before turned snow white and Mae kept it braided and pinned back from her face, but as Owen watched in awe, inch by inch and strand by strand, her coal black tresses re-emerged. He leaned back blinking again and again in disbelief as not only her hair but her skin was changing. The lines and paper thin skin covering her face filled with rich cream and her cheeks were like two ripe peaches covered in pale, soft fuzz.

  He wanted to leap to his feet but he was powerless to move. His body and mind were disconnected by fear. It suddenly occurred to him that Rachel’s hand held tightly on to his with the strength of ten men. Her feet, which had been twisted from confinement to her bed, straightened and pushed out from beneath her blanket and he gasped.

  “Ma? What’s happenin’?” he exclaimed.

  Rachel’s eyes opened and fixed directly above her at the ceiling. She did not speak but only smiled at some unseen vision. He leaned in over her, looked up and found nothing but the soft glow of her lamp above her bed.

  “Owen, they’ve come for me.”

  “Who? I don’t
see anyone, Ma! Who’s come fer ya?” His breath blew as white frost and his heart was pounding so loudly he strained to hear himself speak. His knees buckled and forced him down until he kneeled next to her. The grip she had on him loosened but he refused to let go. The more she tried to release him, the tighter he clung to her.

  “No, Ma. Don’t go yet. It’s Christmas mornin’! Ye can’t leave me on Christmas, Ma.” He gulped for breath and laughed through the sadness that now washed over him, as if trying to cajole her and convince himself this was all a cruel joke.

  “What day is a good day ta die, son? Find me that day and I’ll wait,” Rachel spoke, turning her eyes from above and meeting his. Her tone was deep and filled the room as if her voice came from every corner.

  “There is no such day. No day is the day I want ye to leave me,” he sobbed, lying his head upon her stomach as she pushed her long, straight fingers into his unruly brown hair to comfort him. Not even this familiar gesture that always served to calm him, soothed the ache in his stomach from the pangs of emotional retching.

  “Would ye keep my sufferin’, worn out body lyin’ here indefinitely or allow me freedom from this…existence, to experience the weightless love of those who’ve come to restore me?”

  He raised his now throbbing head and said, “I see only this empty bed and my broken heart.”

  “What ye cannot see is my pain and heartache. What ye cannot feel is all I’ve lost, and I’ve lost so much…but I can finally find it now. Ye must understand, ta let me go is ta save me again. Ta let me go is ta have me forever. I’ll never leave ye. Ye’ll never be alone.”

  “I’m a selfish man. Yet again I think only of me own pain. I’ve done nothin’ but take from ye, ask of ye and lean on ye since the day ye took me into yer life and…”