Hope from the Ocean: (The Prequel to Fireflies )

by P. S. Bartlett

  “How about a piece of pie before ye rush off, Sarah, dear?” Kathryn asked.

  “I’ll have one. I’ll have double the slice,” Owen said, patting his stomach. He found himself wondering if Sarah would stay to enjoy a slice of pie. He found himself as well, growing uncomfortable at the thought and imagined only a few weeks before when his home had been a place of peace and contentment. He missed the solitude of nothing more than the barking dogs and Kathryn’s voice in the distance calling to them. He enjoyed how predictable their life was before the visitors.

  “How is it, Owen?” Kathryn’s question brought him back to the present.

  “I’d say this is the most eye-openin’ slice of pie I’ve ever had the pleasure of tastin’.”

  “How peculiar,” Kathryn said, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard pie described in such a manner before.” She laughed, followed by Elizabeth.

  “Eye-openin’ pie, peculiar indeed,” Sarah chided.

  At last she addressed him. He loaded his fork with a heaping piece, dripping with syrupy filling, and turned directly to Sarah as he shoveled it deep into his mouth in spite. He closed his eyes and moaned with pleasure as he chewed for several seconds and then swallowed. When he opened his eyes, Sarah was staring at him, still pulled back from the table defiantly and yet having been given permission minutes before to go, remained in her seat.

  “This pie represents many things ta me, lass. It’s a slice of life itself, masked in a flaky shell yet once cut open, these bits of apple, picked sour from the tree, are draped in sugar and spices to where they’re pleasin’ to the taste, regardless of their tart beginnin’s.” Owen waved and pointed his fork as he spoke and then cut into the pie again with the long edge and repeated the process.

  “That doesn’t make sense at all,” Sarah commented, turning away.

  “Ah, but if ye’d give it a try, ye just may catch my meanin’.”

  “I don’t want any pie, Doctor Whelan,” Sarah groaned at an octave below her usual tone.

  “When ye pick an apple from a tree, what do ye have?”

  “Ye have a bloody apple.”

  “Exactly. And it will feed ye as it is. But when ye cook it in a pie, what have ye then?”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Humor me, Miss Jameson. What have ye when ye cook it in a pie?”

  “Ye have pie! What are ye tryin’ ta say?”

  Owen took his final bite into his mouth, wiped his lips with his napkin and pushed away from the table.

  “Ladies,” he bowed, smiling at them all. “If ye’ll excuse me.” He went directly to the library and sat down. Kathryn and Elizabeth had hung on the entire conversation; occasionally looking to one another for an answer yet mostly just enjoying how Owen’s charm captivated them all and held them in place while he spoke. Sarah stood at last and followed Owen’s footsteps all the way to the library, where she found him sitting quietly, holding a book. He found it sitting alone on a side table and picked it up; curious to know where it came from and found himself thumbing through it when lovely drawings of horses caught his eye.

  “That’s my book,” Sarah stated.

  “It was on the table…in my library,” he replied without looking up at her.

  “Why did ye run off before ye finished about the pie?”

  “I didn’t run off. I was finished tellin’ me story, is all.”

  “It didn’t make any sense. Ye left the three of us wonderin’ fer no good reason. Ye played us all and then ye left us high and dry.”

  Owen slammed the book shut and leaned forward in the chair. “I’ll admit I may find ways of explainin’ thin’s that are a little complicated, but I choose not ta tell people what ta think or how to ta think but rather give them food fer thought. No pun intended.”

  “Food fer thought, ye say? So, we’re all just supposed to wonder what ye meant?” Sarah asked, her hands on her hips, as if she’d no idea what to do with them.

  “Can ye wonder fer yerself, lassie, or must ye always be told what ta think? Can ye only tell yer head how unhappy ye are? Ye do know ye can do the opposite and probably have a better day most days,” Owen barked, although his intention was not to do so. His emotions were somehow getting the best of him and the leash was off.

  “I’m not unhappy and I can certainly tell me head what to do. I do it every day of me life. Ye wouldn’t understand.”

  “How do ye know what I understand? I’ve seen more in me years than ye could imagine in that pretty little head a yers so stop yer judgin’ and go eat some bloody pie.”

  “I’ll not eat that pie for no other reason than ye told me to.”

  Owen realized he was on his feet, inches from Sarah’s face, but she’d neither backed down nor taken a step away. His hands were raised at his sides and he looked down at them as if they had a mind of their own and he couldn’t decipher if they were raised to shake her or wrap her up and pull her in. He looked down at them again for a split second, breaking their locked gaze, and before she followed his eyes down, he dropped them to his sides and strode past her in a flash and out of the room.

  “Owen! What’s all the shoutin’?” Kathryn asked as he passed her on his way to the stairs.

  He didn’t answer and sprinted up the steps and out of sight, slamming his bedroom door.

  Sarah emerged from the library clutching her book and followed suit.

  “Sarah?” Kathryn asked. “Is everything all right, dear?” Although Kathryn knew full well that Sarah had heard her, the girl pretended she didn’t. Kathryn watched her run up the stairs and a wide grin spread across her lips.

  “Kathryn? What’s happened?” Elizabeth scurried towards her. “Is everythin’ alright?”

  “Everythin’ is just perfect,” she smiled at her friend, took her by the arm and led her into the parlor. “I’ll have one of the girls bring our tea in here.”

  “Excellent idea, dear.” Elizabeth nodded. “Remind me to thank the cook for such an eye opening dessert.” She chuckled, looking back over her shoulder at Kathryn with a grin.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A week passed before Owen reached his home in time to have dinner with everyone. He’d returned to taking his breakfast in the sun room before everyone else had awakened and briefly saw them to bid them good day on his way out. The mixed emotions that came over him the week before at the hands of Sarah, pushed him into his work and he’d requested to be released back into research, where he knew he’d be less apt to allow Sarah to fill his head.

  “Are you sure this is what you really want?” Polly asked, packing up Owen’s belongings.

  “It’s what I need ta do…fer now.” He picked up a crate of books and walked to the office door.

  “I’ll have someone bring these things to your office at the University.”

  Owen sat the crate on the floor and removed his lab coat, folding it and setting it atop the crate. He slipped into his overcoat and hat and left Polly blotting a tear.

  * * *

  “Owen, what a pleasant surprise. Ye’ll be joining us for dinner tonight then?” asked Elizabeth upon meeting him in the foyer when he arrived home.

  “Aye. I apologize fer missin’ dinner all week but I’ve had a heavy patient load—must be the sudden change in the weather.” He excused himself and went up to his room to get ready for dinner. When he reached the top of the stairs, Sarah was stepping quietly out of her room and turned her nose up at him, prompting him to stop cold and watch her walk by. However, he couldn’t allow the opportunity to make her speak to him pass as well.

  “Sarah? How would ye like ta take a little walk in the garden after dinner?”

  She froze for a moment at the top of the stairs and turned around. Her expression changed from what appeared to be the reflex of an exuberant smile to a mere pleasantry before she replied, “Thank ye, Doctor Whelan. That’s very kind of ye,” and she continued on her way.

  “Owen. Call me Owen.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, Owen,” she
mocked, pouncing down the stairs waving her hands as if she were conducting an orchestra.

  He closed his bedroom door and sprinted to his bed, collapsing heavily onto it.

  In a week, Sarah had transformed from sullen to flip again and Owen couldn’t decide which one he preferred. Her quiet apathy or her fidgety sarcasm both intrigued him, only now, he requested her company in the garden and had no way to withdraw the invitation as he knew not only would he look the heel but she’d certainly make him regret it…somehow.

  “So, Owen, what suddenly made ye come ta yer senses?” Sarah strolled along ahead of him with her hands folded tightly together at her back.

  “I beg yer pardon?”

  “What took ye so long ta ask me for me time? It isn’t as if I have so much on me calendar anymore. I mean, here in yer lovely Philadelphia, that is.”

  “I spent too much of me life at odds with people and at odds with meself. I don’t much like feelin’ as if we have differences.”

  “Let’s have a seat over here. Now that it’s cooler in the evenings we shan’t be tormented by the bees.” Sarah walked to the lone bench at the edge of the garden and perched near the end.

  “May I speak frankly, Miss Jameson?”

  “If I must call ye Owen, in all fairness ye must call me Sarah,” she answered, turning towards him. “And frankly is, after all, always the most preferred way to speak…Owen. I grow so tired of how our elders beat about the bush so as not to offend.”

  “What’s yer story? What I mean ta say is…why do ye always seem so angry at everythin’?”

  “I’m not at all angry at everythin’. I’ve been civil to ye, haven’t I? Well, mostly civil but the best way to explain it to ye is…I wasn’t asked ta come here, I was told ta come here. Unlike ye, I never wanted ta leave my home. I love my home and despite bein’ paraded around like a horse for the highest bidder, I never imagined bein’ dragged off.”

  “Highest bidder?”

  “A fine, highborn Irish lady like meself is in great demand, don’t ye know. We must keep the land and the money where it belongs, a course, in the hands a the greedy,” Sarah said and then turned up her nose sarcastically.

  “Ah, I see. So even with all a yer fine thin’s and horses and such, ye disagree with the distribution of the land and the wealth in our homeland?”

  “I have no say in it either way. I’m just sayin’ I had no choice, is all. Don’t read inta me because ye’d most likely be wrong all of the time.”

  “Don’t ye want to marry and have a family of yer own?”

  Sarah turned, looking away from Owen and her playful and animated expressions yet again turned sullen and blank until she started to speak.

  “Not if it means I’ll be married off to the fool with the most money. They nearly sold me off to some old Protestant coot from Dublin who’d come inta money when his widowed sister died. He stunk of whiskey and dressed better than me!” She laughed, seemingly out of nowhere. “But I saved meself when I told him me feet gave off the most offensive odor due to all me years wearin’ ridin’ boots! He ran off so fast he forgot his hat!”

  “Thank goodness fer that!” Owen laughed.

  “Oh, why should ye care? Had he not run off, me Ma woulda certainly agreed to the marriage and I wouldn’t be here drivin’ ye mad. I suspect ye’d be off doin’ somethin’ much better than talkin’ to me.”

  “Ahh, now ye suspect me wrong,” Owen commented, rising to his feet.

  “Alright then, what would ye be doin’ if not baskin’ in me heavenly glow?” she spoke through laughter.

  “Why, I may be walkin’ the dogs or visitin’ me friend Vernon and his bride Penelope down the street.”

  “Ye have a friend down the street, do ye? How is it that I hadn’t heard this yet?”

  “Perhaps because we’ve only truly had one conversation and that was monopolized by yer dictatin’ what books I should own.”

  “Well, ye know I was right about that, whether ye choose to believe me or not”

  “If medicine were not my profession, yes, then ye may be correct, but a doctor must have medical books, aye?”

  “I suppose ye make a good point there. Ye know, yer not so bad.”

  “Why on Earth would it cross yer mind otherwise?”

  “The money, I suppose.”

  “I can assure ye, money means nothin’ ta me,” Owen said, again taking his seat on the bench.

  “Oh, so ye expect me ta believe ye’d give all a this up and think nothin’ of it?”

  “I don’t expect ye believe a thin’, lass. I’m tellin’ ya, I’ve made due with no more than the clothes on me back and they were what someone tossed out.”

  “Now ye take me for a fool. Yer father was a rich man. How could ye be walkin’ ‘round in second hand rags?”

  Owen stopped himself, realizing he’d lost his way somewhere in the middle of this conversation and needed to quickly regroup. She was opening him up like an onion and peeling away the layers without so much as a sniffle. His mind raced back and forth and despite the deception of his whole existence, finding a lie was so foreign to him that he merely smiled and changed the subject.

  “Well, an old drunk of a man told me when I was about ta board the ship to come here, ‘Bíonn súil le muir ach ní bhíonn súil le tír.” Sarah gazed at him blankly until he added, “which means there's hope from the ocean but none from the grave.”

  “I know what ye said but what the Devil is it supposed ta mean?” She frowned.

  “I truly believe I’d have died if I’d a stayed there and crossin’ the ocean gave me hope but enough of me, tell me about yer life in Ireland.”

  “Now that is a subject better left alone,” Sarah muttered, looking away.

  “That bad?” he asked, leaning forward, trying to catch a glimpse of her face. “So if it was in fact so terrible, why would comin’ to America be such a struggle?”

  “They took me horses. Not just one but all of them…even my Rascal, all in the name of money, religion and propriety. It’s ancient history now is all so that’s really all I’ll say about that, if ye don’t mind.”

  “No, that’s not too much ta ask at all. I don’t believe forcin’ someone to tell ye thin’s is a good practice.” Owen never took his eyes off of Sarah’s, even though she stared off and away.

  “And why is that?”

  “People will show ye who they are if ye wait. It’s not what they say but rather what they do and how they go about their lives that defines them. I could sit here and tell ye all sorts of things and ye may or may not believe a word of it but if I were ta show ye somethin’, ye’d gage that exchange on how ye reacted to it, be it good or bad.”

  “I don’t understand that at all,” Sarah remarked, finally turning back to meet his gaze.

  “Fer instance, if I sat here and told ye when the moon comes out tonight, it will be the color of amber, ye may believe me but when ye see it fer yerself, knowin’ I told ye the truth will give ye a trustin’ feelin’. In other words, it would make ye feel good ta know I told ye the truth. Then again, supposin’ I said it would be blue and it wasn’t, ye may look on me as a liar or a fool.”

  “I think I’m startin’ ta understand. Either it’s that or I’m gettin’ bored,” she said, still with an eyebrow raised a bit.

  “Let me try it like this,” he said, leaning towards her and taking her gloved hands into his. “Supposin’ I looked deep inta yer bonny blues and told ye ye’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever laid me eyes on.”

  “Go on…”

  “And then tomorra, we go fer a walk downtown and I tip my hat at every pretty girl I see. Yer goin’ ta not feel so good about what I said tonight. Ye see? How ye feel inside is directly related ta how others behave, not what they tell ye.”

  “I understand ye plain as day, Owen.” She paused for a moment and sighed. “I’m sorry about yer Ma.” This time, her eyes never left his.

  From the sun room, Kathryn and Elizabeth stood behind the gla
ss holding hands and smiling while they waited to have a final cup of tea over a game of cards. They nodded to each other, their eyes filled with knowing as they believed they’d each seen those looks before and the way in which Owen and Sarah sat facing each other, completely engaged and focused one on the other. When their tea arrived, without words they spoke to each other through their eyes and girlish grins. Everything was falling into place.

  “What are ye girls up to?” said William from behind them, packing his pipe.

  “What do ye think yer doin’, creepin’ up like that?” Elizabeth spun around to face him.

  “I did not creep, Mrs. Jameson, I beg to differ. Ah, I see what ye girls are doin’ here,” William grinned and said, weaving around them to get a better view of the garden. “Ladies and their schemes,” he added, walking to the sun room door.

  “And just where do ye think yer goin’?” Elizabeth stated, rushing to block him from exiting.

  “I’m goin’ ta have me pipe outside. It’s a glorious evenin’ and …”

  “Ye’ll do no such thing. Ye see what’s happenin’ out there and I won’t have ye ruinin’ the mood and spoilin’ the fresh air with that thing.”

  “Oh, Lizzy, I’m sure it will be fine. They probably won’t even notice him.” Kathryn laughed and then fell serious. “But…just in case, prop that window on the far side of the room, William, and take yer pipe in here.”

  The first of several fireflies had arrived in the garden and Sarah leapt from the bench, pulling Owen to his feet to find one or two to rest on her gloves.

  “They’ll all be gone soon. It’s gettin’’ too cool in the evenin’ for them.” Sarah frowned, holding her hand up near her face to get a closer look.

  “The seasons here are lovely, Sarah. How long will ye…I mean yer family, be with us?” Owen asked in a whisper, again locked onto her eyes as dusk washed over them and the tiny light illuminated her face with a delicate glow.

  “At least until the new year,” she whispered back, raising her eyes to meet his and then turning them to the sky and the burnt orange moon as it reflected the setting sun.