What Matters Most

by Luanne Rice

  “No,” Bernie said quickly, touched by the concern in his eyes and voice. “She’s fine. She…told us where we could find you.”

  “I’m sorry we called you James,” Tom said. “We didn’t know that you preferred Seamus.”

  “I do,” he said. “I haven’t gotten around to telling Sister, though. She, well, she gave me the name James. It’s not the one I was born with, but the one she called me. So it might seem ungrateful to tell her I’ve changed it. I don’t see her often enough…you’ve reminded me I should stop by to see her more often.” He stood still, and for a few moments, no one spoke. Bernie’s heart was pounding in her chest. He laughed nervously. “I don’t know why I just told you that.”

  “I think I know why you did,” Bernie said softly.

  Seamus looked puzzled, raising upturned palms, shaking his head. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look at us,” she said. “Can’t you tell by looking at us? I knew the instant I saw you….”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “When you were born,” Bernie said quietly, “I named you Thomas, after your father.”

  Tall, mature trees arched overhead, and the leaves fluttered in the wind. They sounded terribly loud against the silence. She saw panic rising in his eyes, suddenly sensed him wanting to bolt.

  “There were too many Toms at St. Augustine’s,” she said. “That’s why Sister called you by your middle name. James.”

  “How do you know this?” he asked.

  “You know the answer to that,” Bernie whispered. “It took us so long to get here, James…Seamus…But we’ve thought of you every day.”

  “Thought of me? You don’t know me! Who are you?”

  The words caught in Bernie’s throat. She looked to Tom, who seemed frozen, standing this close to their son, struck by the passion in the young man’s eyes and voice. But suddenly Tom stepped forward.

  “We’re your parents,” he said.

  “No,” Seamus said. Then, wildly, “I saw you here with the Kellys the other day. They’re important people, barristers, from Merrion Square.”

  “They’re my cousins,” Tom said. “My name is Tom Kelly. I’m your father, Seamus.”

  Bernie’s eyes filled with tears, hearing those words come from Tom’s mouth. Seamus’s expression was shocked, and he shook his head hard.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t believe you.”

  “And this is your mother,” Tom said. “Bernadette Sullivan. Look at her, Seamus…you can see it, can’t you?”

  The young man raised his eyes to her, and she felt herself melting, turning liquid, every inch of armor draining away. His hair was her hair, his skin was her skin, his eyes were Tom’s eyes; and she could see that Seamus saw it, too. He took her in, every detail and feature, then turned to look at Tom.

  “You’re my parents?” he asked, the words tearing out from somewhere so deep they almost didn’t sound like words at all. “You really are?”

  “Yes, Seamus,” she said. “We are.”

  “You’re together? Twenty-three years, you’re still together?”

  “It’s not like that,” Bernie said. “It’s complicated…. We want to tell you.”

  “It’s not complicated for me,” Seamus said, his eyes burning and the words slashing out. “It’s damned easy. I don’t want to hear, don’t want any part of you.”

  “Seamus,” Tom said, reaching for his arm. But Seamus wheeled, smashing his hand down on Tom’s wrist.

  “Get away from me,” Seamus said. “I swear to Christ, get away. Other kids at St. Augustine’s? They dreamed of this happening—counted on the moment their parents would come into their lives. Not me. I don’t want it, don’t want you—”

  “Please,” Bernie said, standing still and quivering, every inch of her, staring into his blue eyes as tears flooded in her own. “I understand, Seamus. I do, I do…But please, just talk to us for a few minutes. We just want to talk to you….”

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “You can’t! See, you don’t exist to me. You never did.”

  “Seamus, please listen,” Tom said. Bernie was in shock, and Tom’s voice was breaking.

  “You think I need you? I’m living just fine on my own. I’ve got plans that have nothing to do with you. I’ll be a barrister, just like the Kellys. Better! I’ve got my own life!”

  “We know that,” Bernie said. “Oh, Seamus…”

  But Seamus just turned and ran, the hard soles of his black shoes ringing on the sidewalk as he tore down the street, around the corner, out of their sight, leaving Bernie and Tom to stand there with their hearts breaking and so much left to say.

  Twelve

  Walking to St. Malachy’s for six o’clock mass the next morning, Bernie saw everything differently. The weather was gray and rainy, but Dublin had become luminous. Every stone, every brick, each building, every spire was different—glistening, glowing, infused with hope—because Bernie had met her son. Rain fell steadily, splashing off her black umbrella.

  When she knelt in church, she knew that she had never felt anything like this before. Joy at having met Seamus, but pain beyond words, to feel his anger and rejection, and to remember back to the beginning. She bowed her head, eyes closed, feeling shock waves pass through her body. Even now, twelve hours since meeting him, she could see him as clearly as if he were standing right here.

  Looking into his eyes, she could see the man he was today—tall, strong, honorable—and the baby he had been two decades and the blink of an eye ago. It overwhelmed her, to think that the last time she’d gazed into those bright blue eyes, he’d weighed just over seven pounds.

  She had held him after he was born. He’d come early but he was healthy. The nurses were astonished by his size. He had cried and cried, and Bernie had fed him and whispered to him that she loved him. The nurses had left her alone with him. There in her hospital bed, holding him to her chest, she had cradled his head, touched each of his fingers and toes, rocked him back and forth.

  She remembered how loudly he had cried. She’d hardly believed that such a tiny baby could make that kind of noise, and it had pierced her straight through—because she’d believed that he must have somehow known.

  “For him to cry this way, he must know something’s wrong,” she’d said to the charge nurse. “He must know that I’m giving him up….”

  “No, he’s just hungry,” the nurse had said, handing Bernie a bottle filled with formula. “Give him this, and he’ll quiet down.”

  Bernie had waited for her to leave the room. And then she’d pulled down her nightgown, given her son her breast. The feeling was beyond description, the most intense love she’d ever felt. This baby had come from her body, hers and Tom’s, and now she was feeding him. It felt as if every ounce of love she had were flowing into him, and in that moment she’d decided she couldn’t give him up.

  Now, kneeling in mass for the consecration, Bernie remembered how he’d fit in the crook of her arm, his tiny hands patting her breast, eyes squeezed so blissfully shut as he’d drunk his fill. She’d felt as one with her baby—she, Tom, and their son could be a family. They could stay here in Ireland, or they could move back to Connecticut. She didn’t care where they lived, as long as they were together.

  In that instant, her mind had been completely made up—she admitted that to herself now. It didn’t matter that she’d signed the paperwork, agreeing to give him up for adoption. Tom loved her, wanted to marry her, and he’d been begging her to change her mind.

  Now, in the middle of mass, everyone stood. They prayed the Lord’s Prayer. Bernie’s voice joined the congregation. Her gaze fell on the statue of Mary. Her heart kicked over. She remembered how Sister Eleanor Marie had visited her in the hospital; she’d held the baby, promised that he would go to a good home.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” Bernie said, staring at the tall, austere nun, holding her infant.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sister, I’ve ma
de a mistake. I can’t join the order….”

  “But everything is in motion,” Sister Eleanor Marie said. “You’ve been accepted into the novitiate. There’s a place waiting for you…. And as for this baby—there’s a good Catholic family waiting to adopt him. Surely you don’t want to spoil that, do you? Ruin his chances to be raised by a real family—a married couple who can give him everything he needs?”

  “I know,” Bernie said. “I feel terrible about getting their hopes up. But I didn’t know I’d feel this way! I love him so much, Sister. I had no idea I had that kind of love in me—for Tom, yes, but this is different.”

  “Your hormones are out of control, having just given birth,” Sister Eleanor Marie said. “And is it true, what the nurses have told me, that you’ve been breast-feeding him?”

  Bernie nodded, not understanding why the nun’s question made her feel such shame. She felt the blood rise into her face, and she could barely stand seeing the look in Sister Eleanor Marie’s eyes.

  “That was very foolish, Bernadette. There are rules against it, for the benefit of both the mother and child. It bonds you to each other in a damaging way.”

  “How can it be damaging?” Bernie whispered. “I’m his mother.”

  “Stop thinking in those terms. You gave birth to him, but now it is time for you to do what is right—what you’ve already promised.”

  “Sister,” Bernie said, holding out her arms, “please give him to me.”

  But Sister Eleanor Marie had held him closer, wrapping him in her black-sleeved arms, peering over his head with cold, angry eyes. “Don’t you know,” she asked, “what a slap in the face this is to the Blessed Mother?”

  “What?” Bernie asked, shocked. She had been thinking of Mary and Jesus—for the first time ever, she had a real sense of what their lives had been, the depth of love and connection possible between a mother and son.

  “She appeared to you—you of all people on this earth. Before you even came to Ireland, before you sullied your body. Our Lady stepped down from her pedestal to wipe your tears. She gave you the sign you’d been praying for—to join the convent and become a Sister of Notre Dame des Victoires.”

  “Notre Dame,” Bernie murmured. Our Lady…

  “You didn’t listen to her—you came to Ireland with that man, and you gave yourself to him instead of God. This is your last chance to make things right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mary appeared to you for a reason.”

  “But Sister,” Bernie said, reaching for her son, aching to hold him, “I hadn’t had my baby yet. I couldn’t imagine how this would feel, what it would be like. She wouldn’t want me to give him up—she couldn’t!”

  “But she does,” Sister Eleanor Marie said coolly. “Didn’t she tell you?”

  “I don’t know what she meant,” Bernie said, so confused and muddled by emotion, by the pain of labor and birth, and by the ticking clock—she was scheduled for discharge tomorrow, and that’s when she was supposed to say goodbye to her son.

  “You don’t know because you no longer want to know,” Sister Eleanor Marie said. “Bernadette, you’re a devout enough Catholic to know that you are choosing to move away from the visitation you received in Connecticut. This is your choice—to give in to these doubts or to proceed with your vocation.”

  “Give me my baby,” Bernie said, no longer able to process one word she was saying.

  “A vocation is a sacred thing,” Sister Eleanor Marie said.

  “Having a baby is a sacred thing,” Bernie screamed, jumping out of bed, grabbing her son from Sister Eleanor Marie’s arms, accidentally raking her nails across the nun’s hand.

  “Nurse!” Sister Eleanor Marie called, rushing to the door. “Nurse!”

  Bernie crouched down, sheltering her baby with her entire body. She rocked him, feeling his tiny hot breath on her neck. He had started to cry, and so had she. She wept, burying her face against his. Hearing footsteps, she recoiled, holding him closer.

  “She’s hysterical,” Sister Eleanor Marie said. “Look what she did to me!”

  “Oh, you’re bleeding,” the nurse said.

  “She scratched him, too.”

  At that, Bernie pulled back enough to see her baby’s face. Oh God—it was true. Grabbing him from Sister Eleanor Marie, she had nicked his cheek. It wasn’t deep, but there were tiny drops of blood. He cried so loudly, and suddenly she realized that she had hurt him.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Sweetheart, Thomas…I didn’t mean to.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” the nurse said, bending down beside them.

  “I love you, Thomas,” Bernie whispered, as if the nurse and Sister Eleanor Marie weren’t there. “More than I’ve ever loved anyone….”

  “Let me take him,” the nurse said gently. “I’ll see to the scratch, and then give him back to you.”

  “I need to feed him,” Bernie wept.

  “Of course. I’ll bring him to you in a few minutes….”

  The nurse had taken Thomas away. Bernie had climbed back into bed, crying as if they’d ripped her heart out of her chest. Sister Eleanor Marie left the room. Bernie hoped she’d never see her again.

  When they brought Thomas back to her, they had already fed him. Given him a bottle full of formula. He was docile, sleepy. The scratch on his cheek was small, but red and puffy. Bernie held him, trying to quell her rage at the nurses for feeding him. She felt herself boiling over—at the nurses, at Sister Eleanor Marie, even at the Virgin Mary.

  How could she be in this position? Why had she ever gone into the Blue Grotto in the first place? If she hadn’t done that, she never would have had the vision. Mary had been so loving—wiping the tears she’d been crying because she felt so torn, over loving Tom, and a desire to join the convent.

  Mary had seemed illuminated from within. Her blue robe had seemed almost like gossamer silver. It had shimmered in the grotto’s shadowy light. When the Blessed Mother touched her face, Bernie’s tears had dried instantly. Mary had whispered words in Bernie’s ear that made her heart leap.

  “Love my son,” she had said.

  Of course she had meant Jesus….

  Even in the hospital, holding her sleeping baby, Bernie had known in her heart that that was true. Mary had been telling her to love Jesus, serve Him. She had been told by her parish priest and the Vatican’s detective that she was being called directly—no vocation had ever been clearer. Bernie was to become a nun.

  But first, she had promised Tom she would take that trip with him—before she joined the order, went behind the wall, she had told her old, dear friend that she would accompany him to Ireland, to search out where the Sullivans and Kellys had come from. And they had traveled here, to Dublin….

  And they had tumbled into love. Bernie knew that love had been brewing their whole lives—but the minute they’d landed in Ireland, she’d felt something new. It was as if they were suddenly all grown-up, far from home, together in a different way.

  His Kelly relatives had besieged them in Dublin, so they’d taken a week away. They’d gone west, to County Clare. Bernie had always wanted to see the Cliffs of Moher. She had seen pictures, known that they were spectacular, and she’d thought that standing there, facing back toward America, would help her say goodbye to an old dream; she’d tell Tom that she’d really made up her mind.

  But when the time came, she couldn’t. Tom had held her, standing so high over the sea. It was the first of May, and the air felt so fresh. She’d shivered in his arms, knowing that she’d never wanted anything more. Her eyes weren’t closed, not at all. She’d held his hand, walking together away from the path, into a field of flowers.

  They’d lain down in the tall grass, undressed each other so tenderly, and made love for the first time. She’d arched toward him as he entered her, and he’d looked into her eyes so directly, she’d felt he was seeing straight into her heart.

  He’d never left. Bernie’s heart had never
stopped belonging to Tom, and from that moment on, it had also belonged to their son. They’d returned to Dublin. She’d given up the room she’d rented, moved into the small Phibsboro apartment with Tom. With all the local shopkeepers and the waitresses at O’Malley’s—the only people they saw—they’d pretended they were married. Tom even avoided his Kelly cousins, and it wasn’t easy, considering how prominent they were in Dublin. Bernie had avoided the nuns until the end, in her eighth month, when she’d known she needed help—finding a hospital, and deciding what to do about her baby.

  Lying in her bed, the lights dim and Thomas breathing softly against her breast, Bernie had let both experiences wash over her: the divine gift of meeting Mary, and the human miracle of her son’s birth. Tears had welled up in her eyes. Why was she being tested this way? How could she be expected to make the right choice, when each option was both so beautiful and terrible?

  She closed her eyes and prayed to be given a sign. She’d started to cry silently. If only Mary would appear to her right then, tell her exactly what she was supposed to do. She remembered Sister Eleanor Marie’s words, about giving her son the right kind of home—with parents who were already married, with a mother who wasn’t ripped apart by a burning desire to become a nun. She’d mentioned her own mother, a fallen woman who’d sacrificed her child’s well-being; did Bernie want to be like that?

  “Please, God,” she’d prayed, “through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, help me do what’s right…show me what I’m supposed to do.”

  She’d fallen asleep and dreamed of being with Tom. They were in a rowboat in the Connecticut River, just off the grounds of Star of the Sea. The sky was dull gray, and Tom was rowing them toward shore. Bernie looked down—she was holding their child. Suddenly thunder cracked and lightning split the sky. Silver light poured through, as if the dark sky had been a curtain, torn in half. Scalding light spilled into an inlet, behind a row of rushes, drizzling silver over the water’s surface.

  Tom rowed them closer. Bernie began to cry—both in her dream and in reality. Tears fell from her eyes, onto the baby she held in her arms. Tom’s oars sliced the water, gently splashing. As they got closer to the marsh grass, the river water merged with the spilled silver light. It was blinding—too bright to see.