Family Portraits

by JoAnn Aitken

  Not allowed to be with her when she drew her last breath, he spent this evening sitting in a darkened corner of the pub with his head in his hands. He prayed to a God he didn’t believe existed. He wouldn’t drink any alcohol, although Mac urged him to at least take a shot of whiskey to steady his nerves.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Paddy, the bar man, clanged the bell: “Finnigan Gallagher, you have a son. Your wife is fine and is asking for you.” The patrons cheered, and Finn bolted for the door.

  Patrick (to honor his Irish heritage) Michael (for Mac) Gallagher was a beautiful baby. His father spent hours watching him, still not used to the miracle of his creation.

  Spring 1972

  The city where Finn, Molly, and their one-year-old son settled was in two parts. It was built on the Niagara Escarpment in Ontario, Canada, and had an upper and lower city.

  Thomas, Finn’s brother, had found them a little house on what was locally known as the “Mountain.” Molly was at first intimidated by all the modern conveniences of the house but soon came to love them. Her father had had to work for years for many of these luxuries, but here they were in a modest rental house: a full-size refrigerator, a washing machine and dryer, a full bath, and a powder room.

  She was pregnant with their second child, and she and Finn decorated the third small bedroom for a nursery. The array of paint colors, wallpapers, and decorative trims available was dazzling. Everything they could possibly dream of was spread out before them like a buffet. It almost seemed sinful.

  She could walk out in the neighborhood to shop, and Finn would drive her on the weekends to “supermarkets” for large items. At first, they would get lost in the many aisles and various nooks.

  Finn had immediately gotten a crane operator’s job at the steel company and made what they considered to be a great deal of money. At first, he had to work three shifts, but that seemed a small concession for the largesse surrounding them.

  He bought a little spaniel to keep Molly company. They named him Daniel. He didn’t grow into a large dog, but he could make a tremendous fuss should a stranger cross into his family’s territory.

  They spent time with Thomas and his wife, Diana, who lived not too far away in a more upscale neighborhood. Thomas was an uptight, humorless man, totally absorbed by his job. He and Finn had long conversations about work and politics, and Molly visited with Diana.

  Diana was British, from London, and very unhappy in Canada. She was a medical secretary at a nearby hospital, and, with Thomas, brought in what Finn and Molly considered to be a fortune. Their home was first-rate, but they had no friends to invite over or children to enjoy it.

  Diana really didn’t have a good word to say about anything. The only times she would become animated were when she talked about England. It got on Molly’s nerves, but she would never complain to Finn. As long as he was happy and involved, she was satisfied. She also recognized that, when their new baby arrived, it wouldn’t be as easy to get together.

  In January 1973, Finn and Molly became parents of a second boy, Dennis Sean. He was utterly lovable from the very beginning. Molly called him her “Baby Bubbles” because he was so cheerful, full of smiles and gurgles.

  Patrick, their two-year-old, was a quiet little boy who was happy playing by himself. He considered his baby brother to be mildly interesting, but what he really liked was to sit on his father’s lap in his big chair while Finn read aloud to him. The child would sit for hours with Finn’s arm around him while Finn read anything – children’s stories, the newspaper, history books, the TV Guide – anything. Finn recognized it as odd, but working on the premise that reading is always a good thing, it was a daily ritual.

  There was a park near their house, and Finn bought Molly a double stroller. The park was at the edge of the Mountain, and Molly walked there every day and looked down over the lower city.

  The city was situated on a large bay. At the east end were the steel plants, belching smoke and dirt, not an appealing neighborhood. But as the city stretched out to the west, its nature changed. There was a central downtown area and residential areas down by the bay and at the foot of the Mountain.

  Molly dreamed of a house near the bay. Having lived in Cobh all her life, it was hard being so far from water. She didn’t know that Finn felt the same and regularly drove around the streets in the north end after work, looking for a likely property. He wanted to surprise her.

  The north end was an old part of the city and had seen better days. Many houses were run down, and many were boarded up. He had in mind a large house which he could bring back to life. There was no rush. He wanted it to be just right in every way.

  March of the next year brought Finn and Molly their third son, Gordon Finnigan. Even though he knew it was wrong to have a favorite, Finn loved this child almost as much as he loved Molly.

  Gordie looked exactly like his father and was an energetic little boy, “a little dickens” his mother called him. He wasn’t bad, but he was curious and always into something. His older brother Dennis adored him and let him lead him into many misadventures.

  Fortunately, Molly was a patient woman having endured life with three older brothers, but sometimes Gordie would have her at her wits’ end. Finn always knew when he got home that his wife had been pushed too far that day, and he always knew who was to blame.

  He would call his youngest son before him, and it would go along the lines of, “You’ve upset your mother again, Gordie. You know how that pains me.”

  It was hard looking into his own miniature face and scolding the naughty tyke. Gordie would look up, up at his father and say, “I sorry, Daddy.”

  Pretty much every time, Finn would pick him up, kiss him, and say, “You know Daddy loves you. I just want you to be a good boy and have a happy life.”

  Gordie would feel his father’s strong arms around him and smell his special daddy smell and know that everything was alright and he was in the best place in the world.

  Finn and Molly’s plan was to take five years off after Gordie’s birth, move into a new house, and have a couple more children after Gordie started school. Finn asked her if she was sure she wanted any more children after Gordie, and she laughed and said, “Next time, they will be girls.”

  On one of his explorations in the north end, Finn met an old lady named Mrs. Callaghan who was from Dublin. They hit it off, and over several visits for cups of tea (and maybe just a titch of Irish whiskey), she told him that her children were becoming insistent that she leave her big old house and move in with one of them. It broke her heart to leave the place where she and her husband had moved when they came from Ireland, and she wondered if Finn would be interested in buying it. That would make her feel better.

  Finn was elated. The house was exactly what he’d been looking for. Its condition wasn’t too bad. Mrs. Callaghan’s children had put a new roof on it several years back and had made sure that the electrical and plumbing systems were safe, although in need of updating. There was lots of cosmetic work needed, but that was no problem for Finn.

  As he drove home, he was already planning an extension to the kitchen. There was property for a garden, and a school nearby. He couldn’t wait to tell Molly.

  When Finn and Molly were invited to meet Mrs. Callaghan’s four children, it went extremely well. Mick, her older son, shook Finn’s hand vigorously. Like Finn, he worked at the steel company.

  The two talked, and Mick said, "Thank God you’re Irish. Otherwise, I don’t think Mother would have let the house go. I’m sorry we haven’t kept it up better, but it’s safe while you make upgrades. It’s a wonderful house for kids to grow up.

  “We know moving away from here will be very traumatic, but we hope to make Mother’s remaining time happy. My wife and I have a big house, and I’ve suggested that she start out living with us. We’ll see how that goes and how her health holds. We would all like to share her for a few months at a time. But all that remains to be seen.”

  “Do you live
near the bay,” asked Finn. “It’s been hard for my wife and me to be away from the water.”

  “Most of us live nearby because we feel the same way,” replied Mick.

  Mrs. Callaghan showed her around, and Molly fell in love with the house. “My husband can do anything,” she told the old lady. “He will make this house into the Queen of the Street. I hope you will come and visit us lots, if you can handle three little boys, the youngest being especially rambunctious, but sweet-natured.”

  “I love children,” Mrs. Callaghan replied. “It was a great disappointment to us that we only had four. And God bless you for thinking about making time for an old woman.”

  “I just know that you will become one of our dearest friends,” Molly told her warmly and hugged her.

  The house was a work in progress. Finn addressed the wiring first. The plumbing could wait. He spent hours sanding and painting. He was anxious to get his family moved in before school started in the fall. Patrick was going into Grade Three and Dennis into Kindergarten.

  The kids thought the house was the greatest they had ever seen. In fact, it was. There were endless new games to be played indoors and outside. Hide-and-seek was a big favorite, and Gordie was the champion. More than once, he was hidden for hours, making his mother frantic until she found him curled up, asleep, in some cranny.

  Then she realized that she could use Daniel to find him. “Where’s Gordie, Daniel? Where’s Gordie?” she would ask, clapping her hands. Daniel loved Gordie and could find him easily.

  “He’s my very best little hound dog,” she would say, holding Daniel in her arms and giving him a biscuit.

  Work on the house progressed, and the Gallaghers were introduced to the neighborhood by Mrs. Callaghan’s family. They made friends and joined the Irish Club. They didn’t see too much of Thomas and Diana, whom Finn called “the human misery,” and their world expanded.

  In one of his increasingly less frequent talks with his brother, Thomas told him that he was seriously considering moving to England to try to save his marriage. He was concerned about getting work at his age of forty-three. He loved his job at the steel company and didn’t want to leave. That was one of the few times Finn had ever seen him show any emotion.

  Finn looked at his own wife in the kitchen, singing with the children and talking to Daniel as she baked, her hair tied up and a smudge of flour on one cheek, and his heart glowed. How could one brother be so stiff and unhappy and the other so incredibly blessed?

  In May 1978, Finn got a promotion, a really good promotion to a supervisory position. It was well deserved. The bosses considered him to be a gem.

  When he was hired, management thought themselves fortunate to have found such an outstanding individual. Not only was he presented by Thomas, who was a valuable senior engineer, Finn had a sterling resume and many positive personal qualities. The feeling was that he would go far after an initial period of proving himself.

  The time had come, and Finn was enthusiastic. His reporting group was delighted because everyone liked and respected Finn. He had proven himself as a suitable candidate in every way.

  Molly threw him a surprise party in their new home which was really coming along, thanks to Finn’s loving work. It turned out to also be a farewell party for Thomas and Diana who were moving back to England.

  Finn was truly surprised. It hadn’t been easy, but Molly had lots of friends in the neighborhood who helped her keep it a secret. It was a big crowd, people from work, the neighbors, and members of the Irish Club.

  Finn was moved as he looked around him. They had come so far in a relatively short time. He knew that he stood on this spot on this day because of the amazing girl who had been presented to him by Fate. My God, he thought. And it was almost like a prayer.

  Erin and Shannon Gallagher were beautiful little girls with auburn hair and their mother’s big brown eyes. Although a year apart in age, they were regularly mistaken for twins. Finn called them his “Irish Roses” and adored them.

  Erin had been born after Gordie was safely in Grade One. Shannon followed in eleven months. Their parents were thrilled and considered their days of reproducing to be concluded. “How could we top perfection?” Finn asked with delight.

  Their personalities, also identical, were an interesting mix of their parents. They were busy and cheery like Molly. They were also obsessively meticulous about everything they tackled and had a firm sense of right and wrong like Finn.

  They loved their mother and father with all their hearts and respected their oldest brother Patrick. He was very serious and liked to talk to them a lot about numbers. Most of it was over their heads, but they were impressed anyway.

  Their middle brother Dennis was nice and lots of fun – as long as Gordie wasn’t around. They considered Gordie to be little more than a fool, with his constant pranks and teasing. They would gather up their playthings and go to their room if he started pestering them, which was all the time.

  By the time the girls were ten and nine, Gordie was so wild and willful that his parents sent him to live in Nova Scotia with Molly’s cousins the O’Connors. Finn was alternately angry and heartbroken, which put another black mark beside Gordie’s name as far as The Roses were concerned. Life in the Gallagher household improved immensely the minute he walked out the door. And tranquility reigned.

  The Roses enjoyed peace such as they had never known in their short lives. Patrick was studying business at university and didn’t care about anything else. Dennis was an artist and missed the brilliant colors Gordie brought to their lives. Molly was optimistic as always, but basically she was happy as long as she was with Finn.

  Finn felt relieved, but he was also always on edge, waiting for a phone call from Nova Scotia demanding that they take Gordie back. Gradually, he relaxed.

  When Gordie came to visit in the summer, he was congenial and cooperative, “like a civilized person,” said Finn. The improvements in Gordie’s attitude and behavior were, thanks to Molly’s cousin Seamus’ no-nonsense child-rearing philosophy. He told Finn, “If you’ve got a bunch of out of control kids, it’s like letting the lunatics run the asylum.”

  The years passed.

  Fall 1994

  “Will you walk with me, my love? We can look at the sunset.”

  Molly untied her apron and took his hand. “I will go anywhere you want me to.” She still felt the same thrill when he bent down to kiss her. The various children remaining in the kitchen rolled their eyes as they usually did at their parents’ displays of affection.

  Husband and wife walked down the laneway to the new park on the bay, his arm around her like young lovers. They sat down on a bench beside a large autumnal floral display. Finn looked around somewhat furtively before plucking a purple aster for his bride, and he kissed her.

  At that moment, Molly believed that she had never known greater happiness…and the big surprise was still to be presented. “I have something to tell you, Finn. I hope you’ll be happy.”

  “What is it, my love?” he asked, looking puzzled.

  “I’m carrying our child,” and she moved his hand onto her still-flat belly.

  He sat like that silently for a long time. Molly wrapped her arms around his neck. He held her close and told her the thoughts of his heart.

  As they rose from the bench to walk home, Finn asked her, “Are you going to give me another little girl to spoil?”

  “I’m going to give you anything you want, every day until I die.”

  The Campbells

  Barbara Elizabeth Murray, June 1, 1938

  Nicholas Murray always kept a bottle of first-class single malt scotch whiskey in his office to share with important business associates or good friends, but he never drank alone. Today was an exception.

  He was angry and hurt. He felt guilty and vindictive. He was a wealthy and powerful man, but he had no idea what to do. He had just been visited by his daughter Barbara and that Dave, the new mechanic at his Canadian Tire Store. Barbara was s
miling and excited as she announced that she was pregnant. Dave was silent.

  Nicholas had never liked Dave. He was good-looking in a lounge lizard kind of way, and Nicholas thought he smelled dishonest. He had asked his son Lorne who was general manager of the store why he had hired him and was told that he was a good mechanic and had good references. Good enough to work on cars, thought Nicholas, but not my daughter.

  Sixteen-year-old Barbara was a spoiled brat. Nicholas had to admit that and also admit that it was his fault. She had been born, as a surprise, when her brothers were almost grown up and Nicholas was in his fifties. He was immediately enamored, considering her to be a cherub dropped from heaven. She was her daddy’s darling.

  Barbara was ten when her mother died. Nicholas didn’t think that he could carry on, but the child was his lifeline. He took her everywhere with him, to grown-up places where everyone fussed over her. He gave her everything she asked for and more. He rarely came home, even from work, without a little something for his baby.

  But time changed her from a happy, bubbly little girl into a self-absorbed, demanding teenager. The gifts that had pleased her in the past were now seen as her due. She didn’t hesitate to tell her father outright what she wanted and to sulk monumentally if it were denied to her.

  She got in trouble at school. Although she was bright, she was bored. She had far too much to say and had no fear of reprisal. She was very interested in boys, however, and Nicholas heard a lot of non-specific talk from the teachers at her school and the people in town.

  Nicholas was a busy man. With his son Lorne, he owned a third-generation horse farm on the edge of town. He was a smart businessman too. After the war when more and more people were driving cars, he had the foresight to buy a piece of property and build the Canadian Tire Store which was later joined by some other businesses. This was a huge success, drawing lots of traffic, while not hurting the small operations in town. Nicholas was an important member of the town’s Chamber of Commerce and had taken a turn as President.