by Luanne Rice
“If he had gotten medical care right away, maybe…”
“I know.”
“He was only forty-seven,” John said.
“I can’t believe it,” Honor said, her eyes filling with tears.
“I keep thinking I’m dreaming; it can’t be possible.”
“That’s how it feels to me, too. I keep thinking I’ll look out the window, see him up there on the hill….”
“This is one day I don’t want to face,” John said.
“I know,” Honor said. “I feel the same way.” She leaned over to kiss John, then got out of bed. She might as well make coffee, get started. The day would be hard for everyone. All three girls were asleep in their room.
Regis’s friends had returned to college. Seamus and Kathleen were staying at the Academy, but the situation was fraught. Honor knew about Kathleen’s pregnancy from Regis—and Seamus had seemed shocked and distant since their arrival. Honor could understand; there was so much happening at once: finding out about Tom’s death and Kathleen’s pregnancy were both such enormous, life-shaking events.
Last night, Honor had spied Seamus walking alone, down to the beach, hands jammed into his pockets. He’d looked so lonely and forlorn; his posture had radiated anger at the world. Honor had called his name, but he’d just kept walking. Either he’d been totally lost in thought and not heard, or he just hadn’t wanted to face her. This wasn’t the way she had hoped to welcome her nephew into the fold.
Bernie kept to herself, not wanting to talk at all. She kept herself focused on making the arrangements. Honor watched her friend slip one hundred percent into Sister Bernadette Ignatius mode—the nun who ran everything. When Honor had gone over to the convent yesterday to check on her, she had found her on the phone to Ireland—making sure Sixtus, Billy, and Niall Kelly and their wives were on the way. Honor had sat across the desk, listening to the conversation. When Bernie hung up, she turned toward Honor.
“I just want to make sure they get here before the ice storm begins.”
“When does their flight arrive?” Honor had asked.
“In two hours, according to Sixtus’s secretary.”
“Do you need John and me to meet them at the airport?”
Bernie had shaken her head, making notes on her yellow pad. “No, the Kellys will take care of that. Chris arranged all the transportation.”
“How is Seamus doing?”
“Oh, Seamus…” The mention of his name had made Bernie drop her pen, shake her head.
“How is he?”
“I’m so worried he’s going to bolt. The combination of Tom and Kathleen. It’s so much for him to handle.”
“Did he say that?”
“We can’t talk,” she had said. “Tom was the one who’d reached out to him…. I feel Seamus can barely stand to look me in the eye.”
“Bernie,” Honor had said, her heart breaking with her friend’s distress, “I can only imagine what mixed feelings you must be having—having Seamus here, but to have Tom…”
“Tom made it possible,” Bernie had said. “For him to be here. Him and Kathleen…Oh God, Honor.”
“Bernie,” Honor had said softly, reaching across the desk for her friend’s hand.
Bernie had started to melt, talking about Seamus, but now she pulled back, shaking her head hard. Her hand had felt stiff and wooden in Honor’s.
“Please, Bernie, I know how you must feel. Talk to me….”
Sitting perfectly still, frozen solid, Bernie had seemed unable to move or react. Her eyes had looked so bruised, staring into the middle distance as if seeing Tom die all over again. As Honor had watched, Bernie had winced.
“Oh, Bernie,” Honor had said, her own eyes filling with tears.
“Honor, no.”
“He was my friend, too,” Honor had said. “I loved him like a brother. And you’re John’s sister; my sister. Please, Bernie. Let it out….”
“If I start,” Bernie had said, unable to raise her eyes to meet Honor’s, “I won’t be able to get through this. Please, Honor…just let me handle these arrangements.”
“Okay,” Honor had said, backing off after a few minutes. She’d watched Bernie across the desk—her jaw clenched and upper body stiff, her hands trembling, and bright tears glittering in her eyes. Honor had seen anguish there, and it had seemed almost volcanic—like hot lava ready to erupt; holding it in had seemed to take superhuman effort, the tension visible in her face and body.
Honor had always known Bernie’s capacity for feeling other people’s pain, suffering right along with them in times of grief and loss. But right then, watching her friend try to stifle her own sorrow, Honor had felt so powerless. Her own heart breaking, she’d supposed the best thing she could do for Bernie was to leave her alone, let her get lost in the administrative details of planning the funeral for the man she had always loved so much.
Now, standing at the kitchen sink, Honor ran water into the pot, measured out scoops of coffee, prayed for Bernie to be able to get through the day. She turned up the thermostat, pulled her robe tighter. The weather had turned unseasonably cold so fast, and the day was so dark—almost as if the weather was responding to the dreadful tragedy that had visited their family.
“Hi, Mom,” Regis said, walking into the kitchen.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” Honor said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Not too well,” Regis said. She wore an Ireland sweatshirt over a yellow nightgown; she blinked, her eyes wide, looking so childlike, in need of reassurance. Honor went over, hugged her. “I can’t believe it,” Regis said. “We were just with him. He was so excited about Seamus and Kathleen…about being with Aunt Bernie.”
“I know, honey,” Honor said.
“How could it have happened?” Regis asked. “Why did it happen?”
“We don’t know,” Honor said. She knew that none of her daughters had ever had to face death like this—of someone their parents’ age, so young, alive, and healthy, someone so close to them. Honor’s parents had died, and so had John’s. The girls’ grandparents had been a generation ahead, and somehow that made their deaths more understandable, the grief more bearable. Losing Tom like this was just too confusing and cruel for everyone.
“I don’t want anyone to say ‘It was his time,’ or anything like that,” Regis said, wiping her eyes.
“No,” Honor said.
“Or ‘It’s a mystery,’ or ‘He’s with God now.’ I swear, I’ll kill anyone who says anything like that!”
“You’re right,” Honor said, blushing at the platitudes that were playing in her mind as she tried to think of things to say to Regis, Agnes, and Cece. How could she explain the unexplainable? Brendan had expressed it well last night; he’d lost his younger brother Paddy to leukemia. Honor had overheard him and Agnes sitting by the fire, talking about Tom. Agnes had said to Brendan, “But how did you make sense of it? What is there to say?” And Brendan had just held her closer, shook his head as he’d stared into the flames. “There’s only one thing to say: it’s terrible. That’s all, Agnes. It’s terrible.”
Standing with Regis now, Honor knew that Brendan was right. She stared at the coffee dripping into the pot, smelled its aroma, felt glad to have her daughter home from college, even for this reason. She heard the furnace kicking on, sending heat up through the grates. This weather was brutal, but tomorrow it might be sunny. Life would go on—no, she corrected herself: it was already going on. And that, to Honor, was almost too much to bear.
“Morning, Dad,” Regis said, wiping her eyes and going to hug her father. John walked into the kitchen, wearing a gray T-shirt and faded jeans, his eyes bleary and short brown-gray hair matted from tossing all night.
“Hi, honey,” he said. “How are you?”
“I don’t know,” Regis said. “How are you?”
John’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t reply, but walked over to stand in front of the coffeepot. Honor saw his shoulders drooping, as if this was too much for him
to carry. Tom had been with John every step of his life. Through their schoolboy summers; into adulthood when John had fallen in love with Honor and Tom with Bernie; Tom had been John’s best man at the wedding, godfather to Regis; he and John had discovered family history in the stone wall, and it had led them separately to Ireland, where so much of their lives had changed.
Tom had been instrumental in getting John released from prison early; years earlier, John had helped Tom deal with his devastation over Bernie’s desire to join the convent, and just weeks ago, her decision to stay. So Honor knew that Regis asking her father how he was only seemed simple, and that the answer, for John, was deep and intense.
“I’ll be okay, Regis,” he said after a few minutes. “But I’m not right now.”
Regis’s eyes widened; even at twenty, and knowing the situation, she couldn’t bear hearing that her father wasn’t all right. Honor hugged her.
“None of us are,” Honor said. “I know we will be, but today is hard. We’ll get through it together.”
“Have you talked to Aunt Bernie?” Regis asked.
“She’s been very busy,” Honor said quietly, picturing that look in Bernie’s eyes yesterday.
“She won’t talk,” John said. “I went over to the convent after it happened, and again yesterday. Both times, she told me to leave, she had things to attend to.”
“Like I said,” Honor said, “she’s busy.”
“She’s out of her mind,” John said.
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said,” John said. “She’s beside herself, but she can’t admit it. If she stops to think, she’ll fall apart. I know my sister. She has all the angels and archangels on her side, and trust me, she needs them. This is bad. For all of us, but especially for Bernie.”
“To think of Seamus actually being here at Star of the Sea, after all this time,” Honor said. “How happy Tom would have been…oh God.”
“Seamus is having a hell of a rough time,” John said.
Honor watched Regis; she shivered, as if remembering the scene, how her father had met Mirande’s car as it pulled into Star of the Sea. Bernie had called him from Newport with the news about Tom, and John was waiting. The very first time he met Seamus, he had to tell him his father had just died.
“Poor Seamus,” Regis said. “He was wrecked to hear Kathleen was pregnant—I saw the look on his face when she told him. He was silent in the car, almost the whole way here. Then, the second I saw Dad’s face, I swear I knew….”
“What are Seamus and Kathleen going to do?” Honor asked.
“Mom, let him get through one crisis at a time. Today we have to bury Tom,” Regis said. Then, seeing Honor’s face, she hugged her. “I’m sorry for snapping. It’s just too much to take. I just…think Seamus is going to leave as soon as the funeral’s over….”
“What do you mean?”
“Seamus looked so hollow when I saw him heading down to the beach yesterday,” Regis said. “I mean—imagine being in love with someone for so long, and finding out she’s pregnant with someone else’s child?”
“I saw him, too. Walking alone on the beach yesterday,” John said. “I started over to speak to him, but he gave me the darkest look….”
“He’s been through so much,” Honor said, thinking of what Bernie had told her about Seamus’s life. How would he be able to withstand everything? She thought of how much he loved Kathleen, how devastated he must have been to learn she was carrying another man’s child. Honor remembered what Bernie had said, about fearing Seamus would bolt; she prayed that if he was going to do that, he’d wait until they got through the funeral. For his sake, as much as Bernie’s…
“This ice is horrible,” Regis said, sounding furious as she stood at the window looking out. “It’s only October—it shouldn’t be this cold. Rain would be bad enough, but ice just makes it worse. It’s so dark and awful out!”
“It is,” Agnes said, coming into the kitchen.
“I can feel this weather in my toes and fingers,” Cece said, right behind her. Cece was just twelve, and she started to cry noisily. “Uncle Tom would have hated this day!”
“Why do you say that?” Honor asked, hugging her. “He was a landscaper, Cece. He loved all different kinds of weather…rain, sun, it didn’t matter to Tom. He always said that cold was good for plants, bulbs, bushes…. He’d say, ‘Sleep cold, under the ground, come back next spring…’” Honor quoted her old friend, felt herself choke up. Tom wouldn’t be back, next spring or ever.
“Cece’s right, though,” John said. “Tom didn’t like ice. He always said it was too heavy for branches to withstand. Any time we had an ice storm, he’d worry about trees and bushes giving out under the weight.”
“The ice is beautiful, though,” Agnes said, standing with her arm around Regis, looking out the window. A thin sheen of silver coated every single thing in sight: every blade of grass, each leaf, each stone in the wall. “It’s hard to see something this lovely and know that Uncle Tom can’t see it…that he won’t, ever again….”
Honor glanced at John, to see how he was taking it. His eyes were dark with grief as he sat down on the bench, pulling on socks and boots. Without asking, she knew what he was going to do: take pictures. The day was too spectacular—in so many ways—for an artist like John to ignore. He pulled on his jacket and a hat, grabbed his camera.
“When will you be back?” she asked.
“In time,” he said.
They stared into each other’s eyes. She knew that he meant in time for the funeral. Nodding, she kissed and hugged him. He felt so solid in her arms; in a way, she didn’t want to let him walk through the door. But she knew that making art was how John would get himself through this; it was her way, too. They stayed alive, even as Tom Kelly, their dearest friend, had died.
Honor held the door as John walked out into the cold. Then she turned around, back to the warmth of her kitchen, and the embrace of her daughters.
As John walked along, he shot pictures. There was something so still and delicate about Star of the Sea in an ice storm—as if it were frozen in time, encased in glass. He went straight to the wall, caught it at every angle, the way the light hit it, the way the ice made every rock glisten. John walked to the section where he and Tom had found the box—hidden there by John and Bernie’s ancestor, Cormac Sullivan.
It had contained treasures of the family’s Irish past, tokens of their hard work as stonemasons and their desire to build a better life for those they loved. For John, though, it had contained treasures of a different sort: memories, goals, and dreams shared with a man he had come to love as much as if he were his own brother.
Striding along the wall, John felt the icy rain soaking the back of his neck, pelting his face. He raised his camera to shoot, but stopped himself. The weather was art in motion. He could take one beautiful picture after another. But he felt the act of photography pulling him from himself, from the way he felt about his friend.
So he sat down on the wall. As if it were a sunny morning, a seasonably mild October day instead of a driving ice storm. And as if Tom were sitting right there beside him.
John looked down the hill, over the Academy grounds—the vineyard they’d just harvested, the formal gardens laid out in squares, the low hills leading down to the beach, where sand had already drifted over much of the labyrinth he’d built last month. Tom had kept this place running—while John was in prison in Ireland, and before. Tom had loved every inch of this land: because it had belonged to his family, but especially, because of Bernie.
Take care of her.
John swore he heard the words, spoken so clearly.
“Sure I will,” John said out loud. “You know how easy that is. Trying to take care of my sister is like trying to take care of a nor’easter.”
He could almost hear Tom chuckle. They’d talked about it over the years, the frustration Tom felt with Sister Bernadette Ignatius. She was not just strong—she was headstrong. S
piritually charged, with the energy of ten people, with a pipeline straight to God via the Virgin Mary, no less.
Hearing a crack overhead, he thought it was thunder, but no, it was a low-hanging pine bough, breaking off a nearby tree. John looked over, saw the fresh wound in the trunk, raw and exposed, as the broken branch dangled precariously. He walked over, knowing that Cece was right: Tom wouldn’t like this weather much.
Staring up at the pine tree, at each individual needle encased in ice, John felt himself engulfed by waves of sorrow. Tom had known and loved every single tree here—every pine needle. He had tended this land with pure love and devotion, asking nothing from Bernie except the chance to love her.
Honor was right; Tom would be so happy to know that their son, his and Bernie’s, was here at Star of the Sea. That fact struck John as so tragic, he began to cry. Standing right there under the pine tree, thinking of what Tom had missed, John shook his head. Whether it was fate or something else, he knew how unfair this whole thing was: to have Seamus right here, finally, while Tom lay dead in a coffin. When the boy was born in Dublin, Tom had called John from the hospital.
“I have a son!” Tom had said.
“Congratulations!”
“He’s fine and healthy, and so is Bernie.”
“That’s great, man,” John had said. He’d paused, hating to ask the question. “Is she still going through with it?”
“She hasn’t changed her mind yet,” Tom had said. “But I see the way she looks at him, and I think it’s going to happen.”
“Really? You think she’s going to decide to keep him?”
“Yes,” Tom had said. “She has to! You have to see her with him, John. The way she holds him, feeds him, looks into his eyes. She says he has my eyes….”
“Poor kid.”
“Yeah. But he has her hair, so that makes up for it. The cutest red peach fuzz. God, he’s beautiful. I want you to be godfather.”
“Tom, wow—”
“I mean, first Bernie has to make it official—tell the hospital and nuns she’s changed her mind, that we’re going to keep him. But I know that’s going to happen. I swear, she won’t be able to stand giving him up. You have to see her with him.”