by Gemma Whelan
Declan hesitated. He didn’t seem convinced.
Fiona continued. “Uncle Frank rang again. He’s pushing us to settle the will, too. I said one of us would ring him before the end of the week.”
Declan stiffened at the mention of Frank. He looked at Fiona suspiciously. “Why is he ringing you? Are you two in cahoots or something? He’s supposed to be neutral in this. A mediator. He’s not supposed to take sides.”
Fiona panicked at the thought that Declan might guess her secret. The coupled shame of Orla’s death and Frank’s abuse. She worried that Frank’s offer to side with her would be discovered, perhaps by a high-priced lawyer that Declan might hire, and that this would nullify the will; she would lose everything. Did the fact that she had listened to Frank and not stood up to him, not said that it was probably illegal, not to mention unethical, to take sides with her against Declan, did this jeopardize the whole process? Might she lose everything?
“If you let us shoot on the farm . . . ” she faltered, “if you agree to this, I’ll seriously consider . . . agreeing with you. Keeping the house.”
Declan was dumbfounded. “I don’t understand. There’s some catch. Why are you giving in all of a sudden?”
“For my sanity. I need to move on.” She didn’t add that her entire career depended on it.
“Do you have a schedule yet, a projected schedule? I had thought I might visit home with Julie while she can still travel, and Una gets out of school next week.”
“The producers are talking of moving fairly rapidly. They want me and Sean to go over as soon as possible to check out the locations. And they want to take advantage of the summer weather, while it lasts. I think the crew has been mostly lined up—they just hadn’t planned on traveling to Ireland. And we could finish up our business with the will. Finalize it all. Move on.”
Declan looked directly at her, as if trying to decipher what she was really thinking. “Are you sure about this, about the will? Yes, it’s what I want, but you might change your mind again when we get to Ireland.”
“I really do want to get rid of it,” Fiona responded in a barely audible voice. She remembered Frank, the night visits, the shadows, Orla’s fevered face on the pillow, her mother frozen in grief. “Shed it like a skin.” Then memory flashes of the storm, her sister beating her with her little fists, reprimanding her for making her sick. Declan and Mam’s icy stares of recrimination. “But I think the guilt wouldn’t let me give it up anyway.”
Declan seemed to falter. “Do you mean guilt about what Mam and Dad would think?” he asked. “That shouldn’t be a factor in our decision. I don’t think they would mind either way. If anything they were completely detached by the end. Even Frank said as much.”
Fiona shook her head. She took a deep breath. “Not guilt over Mam and Dad.” She didn’t look at him. “Guilt over Orla.” She lowered herself back into the chair. She felt weary. She was tired of keeping it all in.
“But why?” he asked.
And it was all Fiona could do to keep the sarcasm from her tone when she replied. “I thought that would be obvious, Declan.”
“Well, sorry, you’ve lost me . . . but it’s not.” Declan sounded genuinely puzzled.
Fiona was sure he had to be putting it on. “I was always certain that you had me pegged as a traumatic guilt sufferer or some such thing.”
“Fiona, why on earth . . . ?” he began.
“Do I have to spell it out?” she challenged. “This is a ploy to get me to say it, isn’t it?”
“Say what?”
“To admit my guilt, confess my sins.”
“I have no idea what you mean. What sins are you guilty of?”
Declan looked at her. He waited.
Finally Fiona spoke. “The obvious and well-known one . . . that I hastened Orla’s death, of course.” There was a long pause. “I hope you’re satisfied. You forced me to say it.”
Declan was stunned.
Fiona felt as if he was playing with her and she was losing.
“Don’t act innocent, Declan.” She jumped up and began to pace the room. “I know you all thought it and knew it, and I knew it, too, but none of us could say it.”
Declan’s eyes followed her as she circled. “I think you’re losing it, Fiona.” He said quietly. “Orla died of leukemia, you know that.”
“You don’t have to lie to me,” she lashed out at him. “Of course, I know she had leukemia, but she died as a direct result of that terrible cold she caught in the storm.”
Declan stared at her. “Who told you that?”
“No one told me—that’s the point! No one had to tell me. I knew. Just as surely as if it were imprinted on my brain.”
“You knew wrong, Fiona.” Declan was now the one making an effort to stay in control. “I swear to you. There was no connection between the two events.”
“Don’t lie to me.” She stopped in her tracks. “It’s all right, you know, I have to live with it and face up to it. You have your own conscience to live with.”
Declan got up quickly and crossed over to his sister. He took a firm grip on both of her shoulders. “Fiona,” he looked straight into her eyes. “Stop it! I am not lying to you—please believe me.”
Fiona stared back, her eyes full of fear and mistrust. “And why the hell should I believe you now? You spent our entire childhood lying and blaming me for things you did.”
Declan maintained his grip on her shoulders. “I admit I was no angel.” He appeared conciliatory.
“Every second word out of your mouth was a lie!”
He released the tightness of his grip but kept his hands on her arms. “That’s a slight exaggeration,” he said, defending himself. “However, I’m not lying now. I had no idea you felt responsible . . . ”
Fiona glared at him. “Don’t you remember the storm? When she got drenched?”
Declan nodded. “I remember that, yes. But that was many weeks before Orla died. She caught a very bad cold—but that cleared up.”
“I don’t remember it ever clearing up. I remember it lasting forever, stretching out through that whole dreadful ruined summer, and then she went away to hospital again and never came back.”
“But it did clear up,” Declan assured her. “She was fine for a while. And then she got sick again. But Fiona, there certainly was no connection.”
She was afraid to believe him. She searched to find her voice. “You say . . . there was no connection?”
Declan shook his head. “No, there was absolutely no connection. The two events are definitely unrelated.”
Fiona stared at him, trying to comprehend: how two events that in her mind were inextricably bound together could turn out to not have any appreciable connection at all; how two incidents that seemed to form one cohesive conglomerate, could prove to be separate and unrelated; how two moments in time that in her world as a child had telescoped into a concomitant nucleus, a charged center of guilt and shame, could now exist independently from each other. She tried to contain this realization.
Declan let go of her shoulders.
They stood in silence.
For an eternal second Fiona was paralyzed. Declan’s revelation had shattered her world more than any lie he had ever told. She was stunned and distraught and angry—all at the same time. That he had lied so much, and that this truth, had she known it as a child, could have changed her whole life. Every emotion she ever had seemed to converge at that moment, and when she thawed she lashed out at Declan and started to pound on his arms and chest, much as she had in the barn when they were children. He didn’t resist. He just stood there and let her wear herself out.
“I know you’re not to blame for what I didn’t know.” Her heart was opening up. “How could you be to blame for ideas and notions I had locked inside my head?” The sobs began. Great heaving sounds, laden with sorrow. She let the tears fall unabated.
When she had cried herself out, Declan put his arms around her and she buried her face in his chest.
“You said I idolized her, Declan.” Her voice was muffled. “It’s true. Idolized and idealized.”
“And probably even more so after you thought you were responsible for her death.”
She nodded.
“It’s not uncommon, Fiona. The linkage of events, the telescoping of a child’s sense of time.”
“Do you mean me thinking the storm and her death were practically the same, happening one right after the other?”
“Yes. It’s our perception. Especially during a time of trauma.”
Fiona was silent for a long while. “I really should have got some help, talked to someone . . . ” Declan hugged her again. “I did think of her as an angel, as perfect. A golden child. And I didn’t measure up to her in any way. I always came up short.”
“Because you diminished yourself, Fiona. It’s hard to live up to an image of a perfect angel.”
“I felt a part of me died when she did. I always thought everything in my life was related to the loss of her, but the real tragedy was my own loss of self.”
“That’s right. You’d make a good shrink.” Declan said it jokingly, but he wasn’t smiling. He still held Fiona. “And yes, you may shoot on the farm. Get the film done.”
She nodded her thanks. Declan hugged her tightly, and she felt his chest begin to heave. He started to sob. Fiona held him close, and she felt an answering sob in her own heart. They held each other for a lifetime. A lifetime past, during which they had never held each other at all.
That night, when Fiona returned to her hotel room, she lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. The tears began again to stream silently down her face. She wondered how the body could hold so many tears. She let herself cry until she drifted into asleep.
Somewhere in the middle of the night she got up and took off her clothes and brushed her teeth. Then she curled back in the bed and cried until the tears dried up and she fell off to sleep again. Much of her life seemed clear to her now. A life of unshed tears and unexpressed grief turned back in on itself. The whole rhythm of the family had changed after Orla died, and Fiona knew now that her feelings as a child were right; she had lost both of her parents the same day she lost her little sister. It had all converged here in Los Angeles, City of Angels, where she had conjured up the spirits of her dead ones.
Although all this was clear to Fiona in this instant, it seemed as if her world stopped here. She couldn’t see beyond this second in time. Had no concept of Time Future. She awoke in exactly the same position again and the tears were already streaking down her face. She just lay there. She had a meeting with Sean but didn’t care.
When the phone rang early in the afternoon, she knew it must be Sean but didn’t answer. She let it ring. The answering machine clicked on and played her message. She called later when she knew Sean was at another meeting and said she wasn’t feeling well. She told him Declan had agreed to shoot on their family’s farm and that he could go ahead and make arrangements for the filming. She gave him Declan’s number.
The next day, she ordered room service and ate a few slices of toast. Food didn’t interest her. She went back to lying on her bed, streaming out the torrents of unshed tears. There seemed to be no end. It was a slow deluge, steady like a mountain stream. The phone rang again. Fiona turned over on her side and curled up in the fetal position. The machine clicked on. It was Sean.
“Fiona, I hope you’re all right. I realize you may want some time off—I know all of this has been hard. Please call me, though, just to let me know if you’re all right, if you need anything.”
Fiona never moved.
She knew now that she had fallen in love with Sean but that it was too late. She did not have the strength to venture into another disastrous love affair which would end in pain and failure. She rang him again later and left a message on his machine that she didn’t want to work on this film anymore but that he had her full permission, per the contract, to continue. She wanted the film made, but Sean didn’t need her, she thought. She was emotionally spent. She didn’t know what she was going to do. She didn’t even know how to get up out of bed.
Another message came in from Sean the next day. Fiona lay face down on the bed now and listened to his voice.
“Fiona . . . I got the message on my machine. I’m sorry you don’t want to . . . that you want to . . . back out of the film deal . . . .as far as you working on it. Fiona, can I come over?”
He sounded sad. She was bereft but frozen. She couldn’t afford to let him in.
That night, as the evening was folding in, Fiona left her room and set out alone for the almost deserted beach. She walked and walked and walked and walked. After a long time, she came to a playground, where a scattering of children frolicked in the fading summer light. She watched them play and laugh and swing and slide. Soon it got dark, and their parents took them home. When it was quiet and everyone was gone, Fiona sat on one of the children’s swings and swayed herself back and forth and back and forth for a very long while.
Back in her room the answering machine blinked announcing its callers. She pressed the button and went out to the patio to watch the ocean while she listened to her messages. The ocean waves smashed loudly against the shore.
The first one was from Declan. “Fiona, we’re all worried about you. I dropped by this evening but you were out. Una keeps asking. Sean told us about the plans for Ireland. I’ll come, too, and we’ll work out the business with the will. We can work it out. Please give us a ring.”
Then, Sean. “Fiona.” He hesitated. “I really hope that it’s not . . . that you’re not calling me because . . . Sorry—I really want to talk to you, not your machine. I came by but you weren’t there. Please call me.”
Fiona ordered a small fruit salad, and, when she had eaten about half of it, she threw on her sweatshirt and headed off into the night. She walked again along the beach near her hotel. A few stragglers were still out strolling and jogging.
Fiona kept walking. Soon it was dark, and she was the only person on the beach. The moon was full, and the stars were bright and clear. She walked and walked as if in a dream. She did not even consider her safety; she was considering nothing at all. She came to an area where there were no houses or lights. The only sound was that of the ebb and flow of the ocean waves.
Fiona stopped, as if on cue, and without looking around, she began to slip out of her clothes and walk into the ocean. Naked in the moonlight, she walked out further and further until the waves swept her up and she started to swim. She continued to swim out until she was only a speck in the ocean.
She slept like a baby that night and later into the morning. Her face in sleep started to drain of anxiety and she began to feel calm and peaceful. Cleansed. She felt the morning sun streak in and kiss her cheeks, but she was not done sleeping yet and merely turned over and nestled into a different position.
The noonday sun caressed her face and resuscitated her. She shifted onto her back and opened her eyes slowly. Her glance took in the room as she become conscious of her surroundings and remembered everything. She lay there without moving for a long while.
When Fiona swiveled over on her side her eye caught her new and never-used computer which was still covered with its ceremonial drape. She stared at it and then gradually began to uncurl and arise from the bed. She slipped on her robe and moved towards the machine. She reached over deliberately, ritualistically, and removed the covering cloth. She sat herself down in front of it.
Fiona’s hands searched out the controls, turned on the computer and brought up the screen. She raised her fingers, poised, suspended over the keyboard. She drew in her breath as her fingers descended, found their place and began to glide gracefully across the keys and find their own rhythm. A story that felt like a dream began to formulate itself and pass though her onto the screen. It was vague and unformed, but contained a germ of substance that she knew would develop into a story. She recognized this old familiar place and reveled in its re-discovery.
&
nbsp; Fiona smiled. She hummed along.
Several hours later Fiona continued to write fast and furiously. She printed out what she had written and looked with elation and gratitude at the little pile. She picked up the pages, sifted through them and put them back on her desk. She was past it. Past this particular nightmare. Something had unfrozen her soul and set her writing spirit free. Now she had to deal with the rest.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RETURN
“Keep in your soul some images of magnificence.”
AE
Within seven days, Fiona was on a plane heading east with her niece Una sandwiched between herself and Sean. The week had been a flurry of activity as Fiona emerged from her cocoon, made contact with Sean and Declan, talked with Pam and made travel arrangements. The producers were organizing the film crew and hoping that production could start in a few weeks if all went well with the location scouting. Declan had to finish out the week, and Julie had a scheduled doctor’s appointment, but Una had begged to be allowed to go over a day or so before them with her aunt Fiona. To Fiona’s astonishment Declan conceded. They were to stop off at her New York apartment for a few hours en route.
Fiona had shared her experience with Sean, and they continued to consult on the script and fine tune the characters and situations. But she maintained a certain distance and fought against the pull to intimacy. Sean respected her need, and they continued their friendly and collegiate relationship.
As they landed at JFK airport, Fiona told Sean and Una that this had been her first arrival point in the United States ten years previous.
“It was July—hot and humid. And I thought everything was huge.“
“Are things a lot smaller in Ireland?” Una asked.
“Compared to Dublin Airport of 1980, New York’s seemed like a monolith. The booths were bigger, the people were larger, there was vastly more space, everything was teeming and congested. And I thought the cars were really enormous!” Fiona laughed at her first impressions. “At that time in Ireland, people still drove mostly small cars, smaller American Fords, Mazdas, Morris Minors, and always older models. I thought the airport parking lot in Kennedy was a vast expanse of limousines—big American eight-cylinder gas guzzlers, station wagons, vans—and new, they all seemed to be new!”