by JoAnn Aitken
Having to say goodbye until tomorrow was agonizing. But they both were strengthened by the knowledge that the rest of their life together stretched before them.
When Billy and Kim got home with the kids, it was around 6:30. He looked at Theresa standing on the porch as he was unloading the van, and he knew. Kim was herding the overtired group into the house, telling Alex and Liam that they would be going home in a few minutes while the others hugged Theresa and ran inside for juice.
Billy came last, carrying a couple of bags of towels and damp bathing suits. “Good evening, Mrs. Gallagher,” he said, “Where would you like these?”
“How was your day?” Theresa asked nervously.
“Not as good as yours, I’m sure,” he replied.
“Shall I put them out back?”
“Please,” she said.
“When will you be leaving?” he asked.
“Can we please talk about this later?” she said quietly.
“Whatever you say, ma’am. At your service, ma’am.”
Kim appeared in the doorway. She had overheard their exchange. “What do you want me to do?” she put her arm around Theresa.
“Come here tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”
“Where is he?”
“At Gulliver’s Inn.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow, but I have to ask Billy if the kids can stay.”
“I will help you any way I can. And he loves the kids.”
“I know.”
“Stop talking before he comes back. I’ll be here tomorrow at ten.”
She called to her sons and hugged Theresa. “I can be here in five minutes if you need me.”
The children were in bed early. They were exhausted after their wonderful day. Theresa felt like throwing up.
She and Billy faced off in the kitchen. Many things were said, bitter, stinging things, things that might be forgiven in time but would never be forgotten.
In response to Billy’s rant against her and Gordie, she clarified once and for all that Gordie had not “stolen” her; Billy had lost her through his careless arrogance and selfishness.
“At the time when I needed you most, when Sharon and I needed you most, when we had to go and live with Caroline, you went off for a road trip adventure with your pig friend, Randy. You have no idea what we went through. We were fifteen and sixteen years old.” That slowed Billy down. He could not deny the charge.
“And you slag Gordie for what happened. You’ll do well to remember that you were doing drugs and dealing when you were sixteen, running with that wild crowd in Hamilton, and fucking every slut you could stick it in. And so much more. If you hadn’t gotten involved with Kim, you could have ended up just like Gordie, so spare me your self-righteousness.”
“But I loved you,” he countered.
“Did you?” she asked. “All I ever heard was ‘you’re mine’ and ‘you belong to me.’ Gordie didn’t treat me like a possession. He treated me like I was beautiful and special.”
“In addition to him being so tall and handsome and such a great lay?”
Ultimately, after the angry words, when it was perfectly clear that she was leaving with Gordie tomorrow one way or another, Billy agreed to keep the children. He couldn’t bear losing them too.
August 2005
A warm summer evening in Antigonish, Nova Scotia and Gordie and Theresa relaxed in the afterglow with gentle kisses and murmured words meant for no one but each other.
Theresa couldn’t contain her excitement any longer and announced that a tiny person they had made was growing inside her. Gordie flushed deeply and began to cry. He buried his face in the special place between her neck and her shoulder. “Jesus Christ,” he sniffled, “I’ve turned into a girl since I got out of jail.”
Theresa brushed the hair from his eyes and said soothingly, “You and I both know that isn’t true. It’s just that the walls you had to build around your heart are breaking down.”
“Theresa Katherine,” he said, “you are my angel of redemption. I will love you until my last breath and beyond.” She purred contentedly in his arms.
November 2005
Theresa was five-months pregnant and so radiant in her happiness that people on the street would take a second look.
She and Geordie loved living in Antigonish. His mother’s cousins, the O’Connors, were generous, open-hearted people. They had been helpful in every way and included the Gallaghers in all their family celebrations for which no real reason was required. The fun of being together was reason enough.
Their house required a fair amount of renovating, and everyone pitched in. They donated furniture and domestic accessories to help until Gordie could afford to buy what they needed.
Theresa wrote letters and postcards to the children every week. She made up little games which they played by mail. Every second Sunday, she and Gordie had lengthy phone calls, talking to each child and hearing all the news. The children were in good spirits and were always waiting by the phone for their parents’ call. Theresa and Gordie were hopeful that they would want to come to visit in the coming summer months after their new baby was born.
Everything was going well, and as their child’s arrival grew closer, Theresa and Gordie decided to come home for a brief visit at Christmas. Gordie dreaded facing everyone, but he wasn’t about to let Theresa go alone. He had sworn to himself that he would never leave her alone for longer than a working day. His love for her and his gratitude for his second chance grew steadily stronger. She was his cherished darling.
Christmas 2005
Din and Sharon picked them up at the airport on their way to the farm. Sharon threw her arms around Gordie and said, “I’m so glad you’re back!” Gordie felt his emotions well up; he hadn’t known what kind of reception to expect from her. He had found it hard to imagine that she could ever forgive him.
Sharon had been there for the cocaine psychosis nightmare. In the meantime, however, she had become a nurse, and she understood a great deal more about drugs and their effects on users. She understood the difficult concept that the insane monster who had attacked Theresa wasn’t really Gordie.
Her heart had ached for them both. Theresa was a devastated woman and Gordie a broken man as Dennis described him after his early prison visits. He remembered only flashes of that terrible night, and in spite of his regular court-ordered psychiatrist appointments, he could find no peace or self-forgiveness.
Time passed, and Gordie gained more understanding of what had brought him to this place. He wanted to live a good life and be with his wife and children. He took courses and upgraded his professional skills. He attended meetings for prisoners with substance-abuse problems. He helped other prisoners learn to read.
He did so well that he was assigned to work in the prison garage. Gordie was an excellent mechanic and had a good attitude, and his supervisors were impressed. With mixed feelings, they talked to administration about his being considered for early release.
As a model inmate, Gordie was allowed to use the computers in the library, and he started to communicate with his cousin Seamus in Nova Scotia. Seamus was aware of Gordie’s fall from grace, but he knew him as a good person and a natural mechanic.
Seamus offered Gordie a job at his service center when he was released if he were allowed to leave Ontario.
After three years’ incarceration, Gordie was directed to meet with a counsellor to talk about the possibility of early release. Because of his exemplary behavior, efforts at self-improvement, and contributions to the institution and other prisoners, he was a serious candidate for parole.
Seamus wrote a letter explaining his relationship with Gordie since he was a boy of sixteen and his desire to help Gordie and himself by hiring him and acting as his sponsor.
It took months, but ultimately the decision was made that Gordie would be released in June of 2005. At that point, he would have served three years and eight months of his six-year sentence. He would re
port to a parole office in Hamilton immediately after his release and to another in a town not far from Antigonish when he arrived in Nova Scotia.
Gordie would be released in a couple of months, but he asked Din to keep that information secret. He also asked Din to get him a vehicle which would make it to Nova Scotia after he went to Dunnville to see Theresa.
Dennis had shared all this with Sharon, and her optimistic spirit believed in a happier future. She knew that Theresa would never choose to stay with Billy and turn Gordie away. She knew that Theresa, while grateful to Billy, belonged to Gordie heart and soul.
And that’s how it had played out. In the interests of not uprooting their children when they didn’t have a definite plan for a home in Antigonish, Theresa begged Billy to keep the children while she and Gordie went ahead and got organized.
Billy, in spite of his extreme anger and bitterness toward them both – “Certainly I’ll look after your kids while you and Gordie enjoy your honeymoon.” – loved the children as if they were his own. He agreed to keep them. The three adults managed to agree to defer to whatever the children wanted to do. To everyone’s relief, they wanted to stay in what was really the only home they had ever known.
The children would be at the farm for Christmas, and Finn and Molly were coming too. Gordie’s stomach churned at the prospect of seeing Finn, but there would be a lot of people there, and Theresa had promised not to leave his side.
Dressed up in its seasonal finery, the magnificent old house looked like a Christmas card. The big family was gathered, and laughter and scraps of conversation mingled with the quiet background music. Barbara always throws a beautiful party, thought Finn as he followed his hostess to the atrium to look at the rust on her Boston ferns. Suddenly, he felt a small hand slip into his.
He looked down at the sweet face of his most beloved grandchild, Gabriel, the child Theresa had almost lost. He was a tiny boy. He was bright, perceptive, loving, and possessed the same otherworldly qualities as his aunt, the universally adored Mary Frances. His verbal skills were remarkable, and people loved to talk to him to get his take on things.
Gabriel was four and ten months old, but, the day after each birthday, he always pronounced himself to be “almost…”
This was very important to him, for some reason, and respected by everyone. At the moment, he really was “almost five.”
“Gampa,” he said, “come,” and pulled him into the great room through the crowd straight to Gordie and Theresa. Gabriel stopped and put Finn’s hand in Gordie’s hand.
“There,” Gabriel said with satisfaction. “Twins.” Finn and Gordie looked at each other, neither having the faintest idea what to say or do. Finally, “Merry Christmas, son. You look well.” And in that strange way, the slow healing process began.
Later, Theresa told Molly that the morning she and Gordie left Billy’s house to go to Antingonish, they talked to the children to explain what was happening and how everything might be handled.
The children were sitting at the dining room table when Theresa brought their father into the room. Immediately, Gabriel slid off his chair, went straight to Gordie, and attached himself to his leg. He had never seen Gordie before. Theresa speculated that it was because Gordie looked so much like Finn whom Gabriel adored.
In the presence of both men, Gabriel was happy and content, moving from one to the other, kisses for both.
Four days later, on December 28, many members of both families gathered again at Barbara’s. It was the celebration of Theresa’s 27th birthday and Gordie and Theresa’s tenth anniversary.
Billy refused to attend and was sitting at the dining room table with a bottle of Jack Daniels when Kim brought the boys home. The other three kids were staying with their parents at Maple Lane.
“How was the party?” he asked Alex and Liam.
“It was great,” said Alex enthusiastically.
“Everybody was crying,” elaborated Liam. “You should have seen it, Daddy.”
“Everybody was crying?”
“Yep. Din gave Sharon a big ring!”
It had become a tradition for Dennis to propose to Sharon during the Christmas season, in front of everyone, only to be told that she loved him but he wasn’t mature enough to get married. Dennis always took it in good spirits, saying that he would try harder for next year.
“By God, she said yes,” and Billy looked at Kim for details.
“He has a ‘real’ job starting January 2 with the CBC in Hamilton,” said Kim. "Everyone was really happy for him. Molly started to cry at that point.
"Then he said, ‘Sharon will you please, please marry me now?’ Sharon looked astonished, and then she said, ‘Yes, I will.’ Everybody hooted and hollered and started crying. Dennis too.
"He reached into his pocket and pulled out a diamond ring and dropped to one knee. He put it on her finger, and she asked him if he’d been carrying it around all these years. He said no, he couldn’t afford it until now.
“It was pandemonium. I’ve never seen Barbara so happy, and Finn looked better than he has in years. It was truly wonderful.”
“That’s real nice,” said Billy. “They’re a great couple. She makes him tougher, and he makes her softer.”
“Gordie gave Theresa a ring too, Daddy,” Liam innocently informed his father. “He made a speech and gave her a ring with writing in it.”
“What did it say?” Billy asked.
“I can’t remember, but everybody was really crying then,” Alex answered.
“Come on, weirdo,” he said to his brother. “Let’s go play with our new stuff,” and they jostled each other up the stairs.
“Would you care to tell me about that, Kimberly?” Billy looked at Kim. She had been dreading this part, but somebody was going to tell him, so it was better that she did it in the privacy of his own home.
"Well, Gordie toasted Theresa for her birthday and said that it’s impossible to describe how happy he is to be here with her for their tenth anniversary.
“He said that when they got married, in his ‘youthful arrogance’ he called it, he had given her a ring with his name engraved in it.”
“That’s true,” Billy said, pouring himself a shot of Jack.
“This time, he was giving her a new ring with a more appropriate inscription,” Kim paused. She didn’t want to continue.
“Tell me.”
“It says, ‘Two Hearts… One Soul.’”
Billy’s face turned beet-red. “And everybody cried,” he said and tossed back the shot.
He pushed his chair away from the table, picked up the bottle, and walked out the back door.
Early next morning, Gordie was wakened by a light kiss on his forehead. He groggily opened his eyes to see Gabriel standing by the bed. “What’s going on, buddy?” he asked quietly, putting his arm out to embrace his little son.
“I want to come to stay with you and Mommy,” Gabriel whispered.
“I want that too,” said Gordie, “but you know we’re going to have to talk about it.”
“Yes.”
“Come on and get in bed, and we’ll let Mommy sleep a little more, okay?” He lifted the covers, and Gabriel cuddled up in his arms. In just the short time Gordie had spent with the child over the holidays, he had come to love him second only to Theresa. He was just a little boy, not quite five years old, but he seemed so grown up a great deal of the time.
“Today we’ll talk to everybody and work it out,” Gordie whispered.
Billy had a hangover and was in a very bad mood. Kim had called after breakfast, asking him to bring the boys to Maple Lane for lunch. He didn’t understand why she couldn’t have picked them up on her way there.
However, he agreed, put on his sunglasses, and drove Alex and Liam over. He gave them each a loony to be really quiet in the car. He pulled into the parking area and let them out. Barbara appeared on the veranda and beckoned him to come along.
What now? he thought. I’m not staying for lunch.
“Only for a minute,” he stipulated, feeling too poorly to argue.
In the great room, a fire was burning, and Kim and all the kids were sitting around on the couches and easy chairs. And Gordie, tall, good-looking motherfucker. And Theresa, pregnant and more beautiful than he had ever seen her. Oh, God, why am I here? he silently asked.
He took off his sunglasses and sat on the arm of his grandmother’s chair.
Discussion had obviously already been taking place, and his input was required. Gabriel wanted to go to Antigonish with Gordie and Theresa for a visit of a length to be determined by Gabriel as he went along. Everyone was being very positive and flexible, except M-G who said straight out, “I don’t want him to go.”
Maybe the visit would be for a week, two weeks, a month, whatever Gabriel wanted. He was adamant, however, that he had to be back home in time to go to kindergarten in the fall.
Billy had a feeling in his chest like thin ice cracking underfoot. He loved Gabriel on a level with his own children. Gabriel ran across the room to him and put up his arms. Billy lifted him and buried his face in his little shoulder.
“I love you, Billy,” Gabriel said.
“I’m coming back.”
“Well then, you’d better have a great time while you’re there,” Billy replied in a voice that didn’t sound quite right.
He set Gabriel down and said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” and walked out to the veranda.
On New Year’s Eve, Gordie sat on Gabriel’s bed. They had lived through three action-packed days, and now they were home in Antigonish, happy and tired. Theresa had kissed her baby goodnight and gone to lie down for a little while.
Gabriel held his father’s hand. “I’m glad I’m here, Daddy.”
“You can’t know how happy your mommy and I are to have you, buddy,” Gordie replied.