“Honey, I’m going downstairs for a minute. I’ll come get you when it’s time, all right?” She touched Claire’s wet cheek as a few more tears overflowed from blank eyes.
∞∞∞
Downstairs, the house was beginning to buzz loudly as more and more people arrived, wanting to be included in the funeral procession. Dozens of people crowded the living room and kitchen. Piles of prepared food accumulated quickly on the counters.
“She’s dressed,” Ava told Arianna and Ethel as she sat down to a strong cup of coffee. She glanced into the living room and saw Caleb near the window with hands shoved in his pockets, eyes cast down.
Jonathan stood by the fireplace, leaning on the mantel, only half-listening to those around him. He looked extremely handsome in his black suit, and Ava wished it was for any other reason that he was dressed formally. She felt a pang of guilt for even noticing his beauty at a time like this.
Just in the short time she had been focusing on Jonathan, there had been three knocks on the door. Each time Ethel scurried across the room to answer it, let people in or receive a gift of sympathy for Claire or Aryl’s parents. Grateful as she was, she was becoming more flustered. A fourth knock sent her hands up in the air and the dishtowel flying across the room.
Ava rose and took two quick steps. “I’ll get it, Ethel,” she said and smiled back at her as she swung the door open.
Her eyes flew open wide and she gasped, slapping both hands to her mouth, making a whimpering sound from behind them.
“Where is she, love?”
Ava stepped forward with tears stinging her tired eyes and fell into Maura’s arms. She sobbed loudly and clung to Maura as she patted her back.
“There, there, Miss Ava.”
“You’re here.” She pulled back and put her hands on Maura’s cheeks. “You’re really here,” she said with a quivering lip.
“I received Mr. Jonathan’s telegram and was on the train first thing this marnin’.”
Over Ava’s shoulder, her eyes found Jonathan, standing in the archway to the living room. He returned her gaze with a tired, relieved expression, very close to breaking down. She walked to him and stood on tiptoe to hug him.
“I’m so glad you came,” he choked, unable to hold back his emotion. “Thank you.” He worried briefly about how she would absorb the cost of the trip with Ian out of work and tried to remember the exact balance of the account that held the business funds. It didn’t matter. He was so relieved and soothed by her presence that he would mortgage his soul, if need be, to pay for the visit.
“You look so tired, Mr. Jonathan.” She touched the side of his face.
“I am tired, Maura.” He wanted to say more, but he remembered that Claire’s loss was the greatest amongst them. He motioned to the stairs. “She’s upstairs.”
“We need to leave soon, Jon. Do you think we can get her downstairs?” Michael Sullivan asked as he passed, placing a hand on Jon’s shoulder.
“We will,” Jonathan said, looking at Maura.
Ava held onto Maura’s hand and led her to where Claire sat, void of emotion.
“She hasn’t eaten in three days, she doesn’t talk, and she just stares.” Ava stepped aside and let Maura do what she did best, touch people’s hearts. She knelt down in front of Claire and smiled pitifully, pushing stay strands of hair out of her face, tucking them under her hat.
“Claire, love.” She took her cold hands and put them together between hers, squeezing them. “It’s time to go.” Claire’s eyes flickered but lacked focus. “This will be one of the hardest things ye have ever done. Goodbyes are never easy . . . but it’s something ye must do.” Claire’s eyes welled with tears as she stared past Maura’s shoulder.
“Claire.” Maura commanded her attention with loving authority. “Ye have to get this day behind you. Ye won’t be able to truly grieve and begin to heal until you’ve properly said goodbye. Today begins that long journey, love,” Maura said with a sigh. “And ye must get to the point of healing. Aryl’s babe, he depends on you. He needs ye. And ye need him. Aryl left a part of himself with ye. Ye have to do this.” She put a hand on her still-flat stomach. “Fer him.”
Claire rose from the chair slowly and held onto Maura as they made their way to the door. Ava followed, tears streaming down her face.
∞∞∞
The long line of cars stopped along the sandy road, and Caleb looked hesitantly down at the beach. It was Michael’s idea for a beachfront service, his brother’s memorial still too raw for him to withstand sitting in the same chapel to say goodbye to his son.
A small alter faced the crowd. Below it rested an oak box in the sand, its lid leaning off the side. Many families had offered the use of their chairs and the mismatched seats were lined up in neat rows.
Aryl’s mother walked slowly, already having begun to sob, supported by her husband, his face set in strangled stone. Jonathan signaled to Caleb as he stepped out of the Runabout. He walked quickly and took his place on one side of Claire, Jonathan on the other, both partially holding her up as she weakly made her way through the sand. Maura followed with Ava and Arianna close behind. Kathleen and Michael sat in the center of the front row, next to Aryl’s brother, Liam, who appeared shell-shocked, eyes avoiding the empty box a few feet in front of him. The pastor leaned down with a sympathetic hand on each of their shoulders and spoke quietly with them in turn.
“Kathleen would like a quick service if you don’t mind,” Michael told him. The pastor nodded understandingly and took his place at the pulpit. The seats filled completely, and there were a few dozen people standing behind the rows, handkerchiefs in hand. They guided Claire to her seat on the left side of the front row, and Jonathan and Caleb sat on each side of her, holding her hands. Ava and Arianna sat on the other sides of their husbands. Maura took a seat in the second row.
“No. You sit with us.” Jonathan pointed to the one seat left in the front row.
The pastor raised his hand, silencing the low hum of weeping. For a moment, only crashing waves and calling gulls filled the air as the crowd of over a hundred both sat and stood in reverence.
“Aryl Sullivan was loved by many and will be dearly missed. Anyone who was lucky enough to know him will feel an absence in their lives and in their hearts forever, one that can only be consoled by the knowledge that he is now with the Lord.”
Claire let out a strangled sob as she recalled those exact words spoken just months ago at Aryl’s uncle’s memorial. Jonathan put his arm around her shoulder. His other hand gripped Ava’s unbearably hard. Jonathan tuned out much of the service. He went somewhere deep inside his mind, only intermittently brought up to light consciousness by the occasional cough or muffled sob. He held Claire by the shoulder to keep her from falling forward. The pastor explained the request of the family for a brief service and that they would forgo public speaking.
“Under the circumstances of Aryl’s untimely departure, we will be laying to rest a box of letters, sentimental items, and private thoughts. Anyone who has such an item is welcome to come forward and place it inside.” Several people stood and made their way to the front, forming a line. Odd things were gently laid inside that only meant something to the mourner; notes, cards, a set of jacks, a deck of cards, an empty flask, a few bottle caps, some fishing hooks, flowers, a Bible.
“Are you sure, Claire?” Jonathan whispered. Claire, crying, was working her wedding ring off her finger. She reached for his arm to stand. He walked slowly with her to the box, and she knelt down to touch the edges of it tenderly. She wrapped the ring in her handkerchief and tucked it into the corner. While trying to control her sobs, she stumbled and Caleb rushed to help her back to her seat.
Something unintelligible rose from Jonathan’s throat as stared down into the box. A thousand memories of Aryl flashed through his mind from early childhood to the present. In mere seconds, his mind touched on a thousand conversations they’d shared. He remembered Aryl’s face happy and grinning as a boy
on the beach, solemn and sincere the day he married Claire, hollow and stunned the day they lost everything. Remembered him dressed as a woman on Halloween, making their first day in the tenement one they would always look back on with laughter, remembered the hurtful expression of betrayal as he sat beside the bathtub where Jonathan had tried to take his own life. And finally, the very last time he had laid eyes on him. He had turned around, his face barely visible in the darkness, but Jonathan could see his smile.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the worn cross. Looking briefly over his shoulder, he saw Maura with tears in her eyes. She gave a small nod. He bent down and placed the cross in the box.
“Goodbye, Aryl.”
∞†∞
MLG
Read on for a preview of the next book in the series, Elizabeth’s Heart
Reading the series in order:
1929 Book One, Jonathan’s Cross
Elizabeth’s Heart Book Two
1930 Book Three Aryl's Divide
Drifter Book Four
Coming Soon:
Purgatory Cove Book Five
1931 Book Six Caleb’s Err
Simon’s Watch Book Seven
A Homespun Christmas
Also available by M.L. Gardner
Simply, Mine
Short Stories from 1929
Elizabeth’s Heart
Book Two
The first time I saw Elizabeth she was being carried in by two orderlies. She screamed, terrified. Her brown hair whipped around her face as she kicked and fought them every step of the way. She hissed, spit, and cursed. I watched, pressing myself against the cold, white wall of the corridor as they drug her past me to the wing where they kept the women. Most of us came here heavily sedated, barely aware of where we were, or who we were, for that matter. She came here awake and aware. Even in her violent panic, she must have sensed my eyes on her. She stopped fighting, her entire body flaccid in the arms of the orderlies. She looked right at me, huge brown eyes suddenly sane.
“Help me,” she whispered and then arched her back with a primal scream, fighting again to get away. There was something in her eyes in that single lucid moment that haunted me. For days, it was her eyes I saw when I closed mine. They came with the visions and dreams. They became part of them. It was then, before I ever spoke my first words to her, that I knew I would love her. I must tell her story for it deserves to be told.
MLG
1929 Page 59