What Matters Most

by Luanne Rice

  “You don’t have to,” Regis said, taking her hand. “Just come with me….”

  Kathleen shut her eyes, swooning. She knew that she was half crazy, and this was just making it worse. In a minute, she’d have to be sick. She’d had the morning sickness at bay, but Regis, whoever she was, had upset her so much, it was all over. “Look,” she said, in as calm a voice as she could, “I don’t know who you are. Or why you’re here. I’m desperate, can’t you see? I’m begging you….”

  “Kathleen, I’ll explain everything, as soon as we get outside,” Regis said. Her eyes were so lively, almost jumping with joy. Kathleen could see she was trying to restrain herself, that she was holding on to a secret.

  “Tell me now.”

  “I can’t,” Regis said. “If I do, it will spoil the surprise.”

  Kathleen’s eyes flooded again. Surprise? What world did this girl live in? Kathleen was beyond the ability to be surprised by anything. Shocked, maybe. Stunned, horrified. But surprises were for children, adults young at heart, or people in love.

  “There’s no such thing as a surprise,” Kathleen said.

  “Don’t you have faith? Didn’t the Sisters teach you anything?”

  “What do you know about the Sisters?” Kathleen asked. She grabbed Regis by her starched white apron with a burst of violence; immediately she let go. What had become of her? Could Regis be an angel, sent to her from above? But no; Kathleen looked into her very human gray-blue eyes, and broke down.

  “I have no faith,” she said, her eyes flooding again. “It’s deserted me, along with…” But she couldn’t say his name.

  Just then, they heard a commotion on the second floor. Kathleen started violently, and Regis hugged her, holding her up. Kathleen struggled, trying to pull Regis into hiding. They had to be quiet, get into one of the wardrobes, keep themselves from being seen.

  “How dare you?” Mrs. Wells shouted. “Andrew, Pierce, call the police.”

  “Out of my way,” boomed the Irish voice. It sent chills down Kathleen’s spine.

  “Up here!” Regis yelled.

  “Stop,” Kathleen said, clapping her hand over the girl’s mouth. But Regis just kept calling. God, Kathleen thought—she’s here to help them. She was pretending to be an angel, but she was on their side.

  Regis shook her off, grabbed Kathleen by the shoulders. As if she knew no surprise could matter anymore, she stared into Kathleen’s eyes with strange, incongruous love and reassurance, smiling at her, saying, “It’s him, it’s Seamus….”

  “Seamus?” Kathleen, shaking uncontrollably, had no idea in the world who she meant.

  “The green door,” Regis called. “We’re in here!”

  “No,” Kathleen cried. It was all over now…they’d found her. She would never go with them to Palm Beach, so she’d be cast out on the street, with no plan, and nowhere to go, and a baby growing inside. A sob tore from her chest.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs and in the hall. Noises, people scuffling outside—the crack of boards splintering, nails screaming as they were torn out of the wall. Kathleen heard Mrs. Wells shouting for someone to call 911, and then she heard “Out of my way”—that Irish voice again, cruelly echoing every hope and dream she had ever had.

  Her heart was pounding. She gripped Regis’s hand, holding on for dear life. Was this the end of the world, her life passing before her very eyes, that blessed, beloved voice ringing in her ears? Heavy footsteps on the rough boards of the secret attic’s floor, and then, coming around the corner, she saw—it couldn’t be…

  “James!” she gasped.

  And then Regis stepped back and away, and he came toward her.

  Oh, he was all grown-up, he’d turned into such a beautiful man, the sight of him made her cry: his red hair, and freckles, and laughing blue eyes. But there wasn’t any humor in them now; only a lifetime’s worth of love and longing, the same that Kathleen had felt for him every day.

  “Kathleen,” he said, grabbing her, clutching her to him. Their hearts met, beating together as if they were finally one again, as if they had always been two halves of the same whole. She felt as if she had been dead all this time and suddenly she was being brought back to life.

  “James, is it you? Is it really?”

  “It is,” he said. “I found you.”

  “If only you knew how often I’ve dreamed,” she began, her voice breaking into a sob.

  She tipped her head back, and there in the darkness of that secret attic, in all its cold stuffiness, with the ghosts of unacceptable love, she finally felt the sun shining on her face—the beautiful, warm sun that had disappeared that day over ten years ago, on the beach in County Wexford.

  “James, oh, James…” she said, her eyes open wide, not wanting to even blink, in case he was an apparition, in case he might dissolve or disappear.

  “I love you, Kathleen,” he whispered fiercely, wiping the tears from her eyes even as his own streamed freely. He clutched her long hair in one hand, kissing her cheeks, her lips, now, even kissing her hair. She saw him looking at it, knew what he was thinking.

  “You used to braid my hair,” she whispered.

  “Let’s go, sweetheart,” he said, sweeping her right up into his arms. He held her against his chest, carrying her past Regis. Walking through the open doorway—the cracked green door wide open, the rough boards torn off, thrown aside. Nails protruded, and he eased her by so gently.

  They went past the Wellses, all clustered together, and James carried her down the attic stairs. Kathleen’s arms were around his neck, and she heard the family talking, saying things, but their words were a foreign language.

  The only person she could understand was James, whispering in her ear.

  “We’ll never be apart again,” he said. “Never, Kathleen.”

  He carried her straight down the wide, curving central staircase, past Beth and a girl wearing a black beret, who had to be her sister Mirande, standing with another young woman, grinning and pumping her fist in a gesture of victory. James carried Kathleen right past an older couple, a nun in the habit of Sisters of Notre Dame des Victoires, and the man with blue eyes—James’s eyes—that Kathleen had seen yesterday, in his green truck, from the attic window. The nun was crying, reaching out, and instinctively, Kathleen brushed her hand. The contact sent electricity through Kathleen’s body, and when she looked over James’s shoulder, she saw the nun sobbing against the blue-eyed man’s chest.

  Kathleen trembled in James’s arms, unable to let go, even when he set her down in the front seat of the blue-eyed man’s green pickup truck, parked at the curb on Bellevue Avenue. Even then Kathleen kept her arms around his neck, crying softly as he kissed her lips.

  Looking into his eyes, she felt that they had lived many lifetimes—yet, in the same moment, as if no time had passed at all. This was the same boy she’d always loved and counted on. They might as well have been gazing at each other through the bars of their cribs.

  The thought made her glow, and she started to smile. The smile grew and grew, and it was contagious, lifting James’s eyes and the corners of his mouth. They held each other tight, touching each other’s faces, making sure this was really real, that it wasn’t just another dream, that they weren’t going to wake up and find themselves alone, without the other, as they had so many times before.

  “Kathleen Murphy,” he said.

  “James Sullivan,” she whispered.

  “We’re home,” he said. And she knew they were: even though they were sitting in a truck on a street she couldn’t wait to leave; even though she was pregnant; and even though police cars were pulling up, sirens howling and lights flashing.

  Police officers walked over to the truck. The Wellses came rushing out the front door of Oakhurst, Mrs. Wells pointing her finger and screeching like a banshee, saying, “That’s him, that’s the man who broke into our house….” Andy, still in his pajamas, tried to restrain her, as Pierce and Mr. Wells faded back. Regis and the other girls
came running over, and the nun and the man with blue eyes started talking to the police. But some of the officers were still wary, circling Kathleen and James in the truck, two of them with their guns drawn.

  “Yes, we’re home,” Kathleen whispered to James. And she closed her eyes, at complete peace in spite of the cacophony and mad activity all around, because she was with him, with James.

  Twenty-Six

  The Wellses decided not to press charges, eager to put the whole ugly episode behind them and leave Newport at once. Besides, when questioned, Mrs. Wells admitted that the worst Seamus had done was to run uninvited up to the attic and damage some shabby old boards. She was furious at Kathleen, not so much for her part in the drama, but for deciding not to accompany the family to Palm Beach. Now Mrs. Wells would have to hire a brand-new cook, and train her; and at the start of the season, finding someone good would be difficult at best.

  So the police signed off on the incident, and everyone decided to head back to Star of the Sea. Seamus was hesitant at first; he hadn’t come to America to see his parents—only to get Kathleen. But they had surprised him at the airport, and their help had been invaluable, and he was nothing if not grateful. Besides, Kathleen seemed exhausted, and Bernie said there’d be good food and comfortable beds.

  Because the truck was too small for all four of them, it was decided that Tom and Bernie would go ahead, and Seamus and Kathleen would ride with Regis and her friends. Mirande quickly opened up the third seat, in the back of the Volvo wagon, and he and Kathleen climbed in.

  With Mirande driving and Regis beside her in front, Juliana and Monica behind them, and Seamus and Kathleen in the far back—plus assorted backpacks, overnight bags, and Kathleen’s suitcase—it was a tight fit. But Seamus didn’t care. He just held on to Kathleen with all his might, loved the way she rested her head against his shoulder.

  “You guys okay back there?” Mirande called.

  “We’re fine,” Seamus said, answering for both of them. Kathleen seemed almost in shock, huddled up beside him, her eyes closed.

  “We just have to swing by my house for one minute,” Mirande said. “It won’t take long.”

  “Take all the time you need,” Seamus said.

  He and Kathleen were facing backwards, out the station wagon’s rear hatchway, as they sped through Newport. He sensed the sea’s closeness, and it made him glad to think of Kathleen in a place surrounded by ocean, like Ireland. When they reached the harbor, he saw the slate surface dotted with whitecaps. The Hibernian Hall stood at the junction of two main roads, Irish flag whipping in the wind. At the sight of it, he squeezed Kathleen and gestured at the flag, and she looked out at it.

  “I had them fly that for you,” Kathleen said, smiling.

  “Did you really?” he asked.

  “I would have,” she said, “if I’d had any idea that you were coming. How did you find me, James? Or Seamus? What is your name, now?”

  “You can call me whatever you want,” he said. “I’ve been using Seamus the last few years.”

  “Irish for James,” she said. “It makes sense, and it suits you. Okay, then—Seamus. How’d you find me?”

  “Oh, Kathleen,” he said. “I’ve had every angel, saint, and demon in Ireland looking for you.”

  “But I haven’t been in Ireland for years now,” she said sadly.

  “I just found that out,” Seamus said.

  “I wanted to contact you,” she said. “So badly. But things kept happening. First, I tried to find you at the Home, but you weren’t there. My parents learned about it, and…” She trailed off, her eyes troubled. “Let’s just say they didn’t want me in touch with people from the past.”

  “They thought we weren’t good enough for you?” Seamus asked teasingly.

  “Oh, it wasn’t that,” she said. “They had their reasons. What they were, Seamus, was thieves. Always after the prize, and they didn’t care how they got it.”

  “But they came to the Home, to find you,” he said, frowning. “Your real parents…you were so happy. They must have loved you, to do that. That’s all that matters, right?”

  “They wanted me to be a decoy,” she said. “So they could score more easily.”

  “Kathleen, no,” he said.

  She nodded. “Yes. They had some trouble with the gardai in Dublin, so we moved out of Blackrock….”

  “I went there to find you,” Seamus said. “After I convinced Sister Anastasia to give me your address.”

  “You did?” she asked, her eyes flashing.

  “Yes, but you’d already left.”

  “We went to Cork, and from there to Boston,” she said. “We lived in a few places there, but they thought there’d be more opportunity in New York. That’s where I escaped; I saw an ad for a cook, in the Irish Echo, and I answered it.”

  “The Wellses?” Seamus asked.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “There were other families before them.”

  “Well,” Seamus said, “they were all lucky to have you cooking for them. You were the best in the world; the meals at St. Augustine’s were always the best when you were there.”

  “It’s where I learned to cook,” she said. “The Sisters always told me that cooking was a way of showing love, and that’s what I always tried to do. But Seamus, some of the people I worked for…”

  “You’ve been through a lot,” he said, thinking of how wrong he’d been, during the years he’d imagined her in a loving home, and more recently, when he’d pictured her living in one of the Newport grand houses, not cooking for the family.

  “Oh, the worst of it was not knowing where you were,” she said. “Wondering if I’d ever see you again. How did you find me?” she asked.

  “Sister Bernadette Ignatius and Tom Kelly,” he said. “They brought me the postcard you’d sent Sister Anastasia—of the Cliff Walk. All I knew was that you lived here in Newport, and that I had to come find you.”

  “And you did find me,” she said, smiling, shaking her head in wonder.

  Seamus kept his arm around her, stroking her hair, as Mirande pulled into the driveway of a small house. She and Regis jumped out and ran to the front door. They quickly changed out of the black uniforms, into regular clothes. Kathleen kept looking nervously at the door, told Seamus they had a long ride ahead of them and she’d better run inside for a minute. He popped the hatch open, watching her as she hurried up the front walk to the house.

  A few minutes later, everyone was back at the car. Mirande’s mother walked out to say goodbye. She kissed her daughter, Regis, Monica, and Juliana. Then she shook Seamus’s hand, said how incredible it was that he had found Kathleen.

  “It’s so wonderful when a love story has a happy ending,” Mrs. St. Florent said.

  “More like a happy beginning,” Regis said, smiling.

  “That’s right,” Seamus said, putting his arm around Kathleen. “We have our lives ahead of us. The best is yet to come.”

  At those words, Kathleen’s face crumpled and she began to cry. Everyone was in shock, and the sight of her tears sliced Seamus’s heart. What was wrong? What had he said?

  “I’m sorry,” she said, sobbing. “This is all just such a shock. I’m so happy, completely overjoyed. I just never expected…”

  “That’s okay,” Seamus said, holding her and trying to console her.

  “Wait till we get you to Star of the Sea,” Regis said. “You’ll have the chance to rest, and spend time together, and you’ll forget all about that attic.” She shivered, reaching for Kathleen’s hand. “It was awful up there; living with those people had to be very traumatic.”

  At that, Seamus felt a terrible quiver go through Kathleen’s body. He saw her hold her stomach as if she feared she might be sick. Regis and her friends looked worried, and Mirande’s mother stepped forward, looking into Kathleen’s eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Mrs. St. Florent asked. “Is there something we can do for you?”

  “I’m fine,” Kathl
een said, smiling as she wiped away her tears. “Just emotional, that’s all. Everything’s good…only…I know it’s a long drive, and I might have to stop once or twice. I tend to get a little motion sick…”

  “Say the word!” Mirande exclaimed. “I’ll pull right over.”

  Monica and Juliana offered to switch, sit in the rear-facing third seat, and Seamus followed Kathleen into the middle. Mirande kissed her mother again, and then she and Regis climbed in front, and they were under way.

  “It seems weird, your first time in Newport,” Mirande called back to Seamus, “to not give you a tour. It’s so beautiful! I hate to have you thinking it’s all like Oakhurst and the Wellses….”

  “I don’t think that,” Seamus said.

  “Oh, but there are wild rocky stretches along the Atlantic, and huge castle-like houses towering over secluded coves, one house with more chimneys than you can count, and wild roses everywhere—the last ones are still in bloom—and craggy cliffs above the sea…”

  “The Cliff Walk,” Seamus said, the words sparking something in him.

  “Yes,” Mirande said. “The most spectacular path in America…ten miles, all along the wildest coastline. There are palaces along the way, and a tunnel through the rocks, a Chinese teahouse, and Forty Steps, and Rosecliff, the house where they filmed The Great Gatsby….” Mirande sounded excited, just listing the things that made the Cliff Walk such an important part of Newport.

  They all sounded interesting, but to Seamus, it was important for one reason: because it was on the postcard Kathleen had written, the one that had told him where he could find her.

  “Should we go see it?” Mirande asked. “Before we head to Connecticut?”

  Seamus’s blood beat faster, to think of seeing a place of such symbolism to him and Kathleen. He would’ve liked to stand on the cliffs, gaze out at the Atlantic, shout back to Ireland that he’d found her. But when he looked across the seat, saw her looking so pale—as if the motion sickness had already started—he shook his head at Mirande, who was watching for his reaction in the rearview mirror.