The Eden Tree

by Doreen Owens Malek

  She saw the impact of her statement in his face. He closed his eyes and bowed his head.

  “That’s the truth of it,” he said quietly.

  Linn dug her nails into her palms to prevent herself from running to him. Being forced to witness his pain was the cruelest torment she had ever experienced.

  “How did you find me?” she whispered.

  “Terry. Terry told me where you were.”

  “Con, you didn’t hurt that boy!”

  He gave a snort of mirthless laughter. “Oh, I didn’t have to, not at all.”

  “But he didn’t see where I went.”

  “Oh aye, he did. He waited outside while you were in the hospital and then trailed you here when you took the cab.”

  “But why?”

  “Because he felt sorry for me!” Con barked, flinging his hands wide to indicate his amazement. “My lady was taking off, ditching me like a bundle of trash for the dustbin, and he thought I should have another chance to talk to you. That’s what you’ve done to me, Aislinn. I’m reduced to being pitied by romantic teenagers.” He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it.

  “I’m sorry, Con,” Linn murmured. She could well imagine how that episode had injured his pride.

  “Oh, sorry doesn’t cover it,” he responded, eyeing her. “There was I, in every hotel and hotel bar in Shannon, looking for you. As I’m leaving the last place I tried Terry comes roaring up on his bike to tell me the news. What were you doing in the hospital, Aislinn? Why did you go there?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Not talking, are you? You and Bridie have suddenly turned into the silent sisters.” He reached out and grabbed her arm. “Tell me why you’re leaving me. Tell me.”

  Linn hung her head until he thrust his hand under her chin and forced her to look up at him.

  “What is it? Did you decide you couldn’t leave your fabulous job in America, that you couldn’t take the chance I wouldn’t go with you to the States? I realize I hardly stack up against such a brilliant career.”

  Linn’s heart was breaking. He was stabbing at improbabilities in his desperate struggle to understand what could not be understood.

  “Or is it that you can’t commit yourself to a real man after that washout you were married to?” he spat. “I can tell you this. You might not be able to push me around but I’ll guarantee you would never have a cold bed.”

  She willed herself not to cry. She would endure this, and then he would go, and it would be over.

  He released her so suddenly that she stumbled. “You’re no different from Tracy,” he said disgustedly. “You’ve had your fun and now the vacation’s over and it’s time to go home.”

  “Please don’t say that,” she whispered. “It isn’t true.”

  “Then tell me what is true,” he demanded.

  “I have to go back to teach a course,” she repeated pathetically.

  Con seized her and backed her against a wall. “Oh, you are a bloody liar,” he gritted between his teeth. “I would shake you senseless if I thought it would make you tell me, but it will not.” He spun her around and flung her away from him. “Go, then. Go back to America, go back to teaching, go straight to hell.”

  I’m there, Linn thought. I’m there already.

  Con took a deep breath and steadied himself with his hand on the bedpost. The liquor seemed to be having less effect on him now; his anger was clearing his head.

  “But you remember this, Aislinn,” he said softly. “You are mine and will be mine always, no matter where you go or what you do. You bear my mark, invisible though it may be, and it can never be removed.” He took a step forward and slid his hands beneath her hair, encircling her neck with his fingers. “You will never want another man the way you want me and you will never experience with another man what you have with me.” He rubbed his thumbs along her throat, and she responded, as he’d known she would. “In your American bed, with whatever American lover you choose, you will wish that I were kissing you, holding you, loving you. And when you feel him move inside you it’s my name you will call.”

  A hot tear slipped from her lashes and fell on his hand. He lifted the salty droplet to his lips.

  “Tears, Aislinn? Why? Are you sad to go or do you just wish that I would go? How’s this? You tell me that you don’t love me and I will leave you alone.”

  “I never said I didn’t love you,” Linn moaned, hardly realizing that she’d spoken the words.

  His fingers dug into her shoulders. “Then why would you leave me and create a torment for us both?” He pulled her violently into his arms. “You are the love of my life,” he whispered, his hands moving over her body. “I will have no other.” He drew back and looked into her eyes, his own vulnerable and filled with feeling. “I will have no other,” he repeated, moving his head slowly from side to side.

  Linn sagged against him, unable to keep up the facade. This was Con and she loved him so. He sensed the change in her and pressed his advantage, reasserting his claim on her in the most fundamental way possible. He lifted her gently and lowered her to the bed.

  “You promised me you would never leave me,” he said feverishly, “and I’m not going to let you go.” He covered her face and neck with wild kisses, murmuring incoherently under his breath. Linn writhed beneath him, famished for his touch. The smell of the liquor and his heated body only intensified her reaction; she had thought never to feel his mouth, his hands again. He pulled at her clothes, slipping his hand inside her panties.

  “Ah, you want me,” he moaned, his fingers stroking her. “You love me still.”

  “Yes, yes,” Linn whispered. “I love you, Con. I want to stay with you.” She sought his mouth again, kissing him deeply, and a sound like a sob tore from Con’s throat. He fumbled for the buckle of his belt.

  Linn stirred restlessly, impatient for him, and her half-closed eyes rested on the scrap of paper lying on the floor. It was the note she’d left for Con, and in an instant she recalled the reason she’d written it. Dear God, what was she doing? This was her brother!

  She wrenched away from him violently, pushing him off her.

  “Let me go!” she cried hysterically. “Get away from me!”

  Con crouched next to her on the bed, staring, sobered instantly by her irrational vehemence. His own emotions slipped into the background in his concern for Linn. She was clearly afraid, but not of him. She was afraid of herself. Something was terribly, frightfully wrong. He reached for her again to comfort her, and she recoiled in horror.

  “Don’t touch me!” she gasped, holding out her hands to fend him off. “Please don’t touch me. Con, oh Con, you’re my brother.”

  He froze in shock, his eyes widening, fastened on her face. He couldn’t speak.

  Linn nodded, her lips bitten raw with her efforts at self-control. “Kevin Pierce was your father.”

  Con swallowed hard, then rasped, “I don’t believe it.” He was trembling, his accent intensified.

  “Oh, it’s true, it’s true. My God, do you think I would leave you for anything else?” Linn pushed herself off the bed, putting some distance between them. If he tried again her will was not equal to the test, and she knew it.

  “Who told you this?” Con asked hoarsely.

  “Father Daly. He changed your records in Bally to make it look like you were born three months later than you were. Your birthday isn’t in May, Con; it’s in February. My father got your mother pregnant before he left Ireland, and Dermot arranged her marriage to Trevor Clay.”

  Con dropped his eyes, trying to comprehend it. He had the expression occasioned by sudden death or sudden tragic loss: the blank, inward stare of a person who is simply trying to absorb what has happened.

  “I went to Holy Rosary Hospital to check on your records,” Linn added quietly. “They have a copy of your birth certificate there and it confirms what Father Daly said. That’s why I was leaving Con, not because I want to but because I must.”

 
; “There could be a mistake,” he muttered. Linn closed her eyes. It was agonizing to watch him take the same path that she had taken, clinging to straws, refusing to accept that this awful thing was true. Could she spare him nothing? She was hurting the one person she loved best in the world and she was powerless to stop it.

  “There’s no mistake,” she said. “But my father loved your mother, Con; he never knew about you. Dermot tricked him, making it look like Mary had decided to marry Trevor while he was gone. Dermot told Mary that Kevin wasn’t coming back. My father—and yours—was no monster, but the good and decent man that I remember.”

  “That’s cold comfort when I can’t have you!” Con replied in an agonized tone. “I would rather fate had given me a monster for a father than sentenced me to a life without you!”

  “I didn’t want to tell you,” Linn said sadly. “I tried not to tell you.”

  “Maybe...” Con mumbled, looking around him urgently. “Maybe the birth certificate is wrong...”

  “Darling, darling, listen to me. Don’t do this to yourself; I’ve been through it all already. Now that I know it’s true I can see the signs. Why do you think I felt that instant bond with you? How could I have trusted you when I had gone for years alone after my disastrous marriage? I think now it was because, in some unconscious way, you...”

  “I reminded you of your father,” he finished dully.

  “Yes,” she whispered, destroyed by the knowledge. “You don’t look like him except for your hair, but you have some of his mannerisms. The way you incline your head...”

  “What?” he said blankly. He was unaware of it.

  “And,” she went on, as if talking to herself, “that half smile, like you have a secret on the world. He used to smile that way too. Oh, Con, I didn’t want to know it either but it is true.”

  His eyes drifted away from hers and looked into the distance.

  “What will become of us?” he said softly. “Aislinn, what will become of us?”

  Linn wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, shaking her head.

  “I don’t know,” she said on a trembling sigh. “I’ve done nothing else but wonder the same thing.”

  Con stood abruptly and took out his wallet, dropping a wad of brightly colored Irish money on the dresser. “This will pay for the door,” he said dazedly. He adjusted his clothes and tucked his shirt back into his jeans.

  “Where are you going?” Linn asked, suddenly frightened. Armed with this awful knowledge, what might he do?

  “I have to get away,” he said, moving toward the door. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt anybody, but I must go.”

  Linn put her hand on his arm. He shrugged it off.

  “Leave me be, Aislinn,” he said in a strangled voice. “Leave me be!”

  He dashed out through the doorless entrance and Linn heard his footsteps pounding down the hall.

  She sank into the hotel armchair and put her head in her hands.

  * * * *

  Con ran out through the lobby and into the adjacent alley. He stopped suddenly, panting, and leaned against the brick wall of the building he had just left. After a moment the night silence was broken by the sound of choking, wracking sobs, the crying of a man who has forgotten how to cry, a man who hasn’t cried since childhood. His broad shoulders shook with the force of his emotion and he wiped his streaming eyes with the back of his arm. He hadn’t cried since his father had died. No, not his father. The man who had raised him, but not his father.

  Aislinn, he thought, moaning softly. His Aislinn was lost to him forever.

  Con took a deep, shuddering breath and looked up at the night sky. The stars shone; the clouds drifted across the moon just as they had before and would again. Why wasn’t there some sign that two lives had just been thrown away by the mistakes of a previous generation? It wasn’t fair. No, it wasn’t fair!

  He thought about how she loved his book of poetry, envisioned her rapt face as she’d listened to him tell the story of its title. The Eden Tree.

  They had created their own garden, with a new tree, and the forbidden fruit was each other.

  Chapter 11

  Linn flew back to New York the next morning. She had little recollection of the flight, except for one interruption from a stewardess who asked her if something was wrong. Linn had been listening to music through the headphones, a sad song about a lost happy past. When the vocalist got to the line that said, “I remember a time I knew what happiness was. Let the memory live again,” Linn started to cry. The attendant had seen the silent tears flowing down her cheeks and become concerned.

  Linn dismissed her inquiry with a silent shake of her head and the uniformed woman went away.

  Linn lectured herself sternly as she walked through the airport reception building. “I have to stop crying all the time; I have to start eating; I have to call a halt to this walking nervous breakdown.” She repeated this line as she moved along but it didn’t help. The double loss, of Con and of Ireland, was just too much. She couldn’t think of going back there; the country was tied up with the man. Never again to see the green fields or the cloudy, opalescent sky. Never again to feel the cool, salty breeze, or hear a soft voice saying, “I will,” or “I am.” The Irish disliked the use of “yes” and “no”; there were no words for them in Gaelic and they carried their custom over into English. The vaguely Celtic “aye” was the only concession they would make.

  And the people themselves—generous, impetuous, witty. Gone, all of it, never to be recaptured. Linn mourned the passing of her emerald summer with Con.

  Karen was waiting for Linn at the gate. She took one of Linn’s bags from her hand silently and then said, “I don’t have to tell you that you look awful.”

  “Please, Karen, no more. I appreciate your coming for me but skip the lectures, all right?”

  “Aren’t you even going to tell me what happened?”

  “I can’t talk about it right now; it’s too painful. I’m exerting all my energy to deal with it. Don’t press me for details, okay?”

  “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  Linn shook her head. Before her visit to Father Daly she hadn’t been concerned about getting pregnant; in fact, she had been half hoping…But after she knew about Con’s true parentage it had become a possibility too horrible to contemplate. She’d found out on the plane that she was safe, one small spark of relief in a dark cloud of misery.

  “I don’t like the way you look,” Karen insisted. “I think you should see a doctor. I can make an appointment with Dr. Cross if you like.”

  “All I need is rest. I’d like to go home and get to bed, if you don’t mind.”

  Karen eyed her warily all through the drive back to Jersey but maintained a tactful reserve. She dropped Linn off in front of her apartment complex and said, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come up for a little while? I could fix you something to eat; you can’t tell me you couldn’t use a decent meal.”

  “No thanks. I’ll call you tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  “Where is the rest of your luggage?”

  “I’m having it sent.”

  “You left in a hurry, I see.”

  “Karen, I’ll call you tomorrow. Goodbye.” Linn slammed the door of Karen’s station wagon and walked wearily up the path to her apartment.

  She unlocked the door to find everything as she’d left it. It was odd; she felt so different, and yet the furniture, the pictures on the walls, the potted plants all stared back at her with customary indifference. It was the same old place but she wasn’t the same old Aislinn. She tossed her bags on a chair and collapsed on the sofa.

  Well, Linn thought, what happens now? I go back to my job, back to the loneliness, back to my empty former life. And as for the future, who could know? Would she wind up batty and desperate like Amanda Wingfield, patient in chiffon, waiting for a gentleman caller who never came? Would she become one of those crazy old ladies who bore people endlessly with st
ories of a lost youthful lover? She sure as hell wasn’t going to fall headlong into happiness. There was only one Connor Clay, and he was finally, irretrievably, gone.

  Linn got up slowly and went to the bedroom, putting her copy of A Terrible Beauty on the shelf above the bed. It was the hardcover edition, which she’d purchased at the airport on her return trip. She already owned a paperback edition but the hardback had Con’s picture on the dust cover. Above the caption “Trevor Drennan” and the brief biography, his beloved eyes looked into hers. He was standing on a Dublin street corner, a corduroy jacket hooked over his shoulder, his hair stirred by the wind. The photographer had captured that faintly quizzical look she loved: Con’s head tilted to one side, his chin lifted, his mouth firm and serious. She looked at the image for a long moment and then flung the book across the room.

  She crawled onto the bed and stared at the ceiling until she finally fell asleep.

  * * * *

  Several days passed, during which Linn was determined to keep busy. She went in to her office and began organizing things for the fall term, drawing up book lists, compiling course outlines. Work helped during the day but the nights were endless. She took long walks; she went to the movies alone; she went shopping with Karen—anything to occupy her time. Unoccupied hours left her free to think, and thinking was a mistake.

  She was having a cup of coffee in the faculty lounge one afternoon when the secretary opened the door and said, “Linn, there’s somebody here looking for you—tall guy with curly dark hair, sounds sort of British or something...”

  Linn dashed past her and went running down the hall.

  Con was waiting in front of her office, his hand on the nameplate that read Dr. Aislinn Pierce. He looked around at her approach and dropped his hand.

  Linn stopped a few feet away from him. “Hello, Con.”

  He smiled his slight, all-eyes-and-very-little-mouth smile. “Hello, Aislinn.”

  Just the sound of her name on his lips was enough to make her knees weak. She unlocked the office door and they entered her small, paneled cubbyhole. Linn locked the door behind them.