Sandcastles

by Luanne Rice

  “What are you doing?” Cece asked. “I thought you were supposed to be lying down.”

  “I’m tired of lying down, and I’m bored,” Agnes said.

  “Bored because you can’t go wall-running at night anymore?” Cece asked.

  Agnes tried to smile. Something about her mother’s painting had shaken her right down to her bones. She kept seeing her father’s eyes; the way her mother had painted them, filled with terror and sorrow and tragedy. Those eyes said everything there was to say about their family.

  “Mom would probably ground you for life,” Cece said, “if you ever went back to that wall again.”

  “Because I got hurt…”

  “No! Because she doesn’t want us to see our father! Haven’t you noticed? Why is she acting like this?”

  Just then Peter’s Jeep came squealing up the driveway. Agnes and Cece watched as Regis leaned across the seat to kiss him, then jumped out. He drove away fast, leaving a little cloud of dust under his tires.

  “Hey,” Regis said, climbing the steps. “How are my girls?”

  “Where’s Peter going?” Cece asked glumly, instead of answering.

  “He’s going fishing with the Hubbard’s Point kids.”

  “What about you?”

  “I don’t feel like going….”

  “Why do you look so happy?” Agnes asked, suspicious because Regis was never happy to be left behind by Peter, and picking up on a new radiance in her sister that hadn’t been there this morning.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute, but you first. Why do you look so unhappy, both of you?” Regis asked.

  “Why won’t Mom let us see Dad?” Cece asked. “It’s crazy. He’s my father, and I love him, and I want to see him.”

  “She’s in there,” Agnes said, gesturing at the studio, “painting up a storm.”

  “Really?” Regis asked. “She hasn’t painted at night in such a long time.”

  “I know! And you should see the painting she’s doing,” Agnes said. “It might be the best thing she’s ever done, and it’s of him. Carrying me up the beach. But the part you really notice is Dad.”

  “Really?” Regis asked, gazing toward the studio, all lit up, yellow light splashing onto the bushes and grass. “Dad?”

  “Yes,” Agnes said.

  “Well, speaking of Dad, I saw him tonight,” Regis said, her eyes shining.

  “What happened?” Cece asked, bouncing on her knees.

  “It was wonderful,” Regis said. “He came to Paradise with Tom…”

  “To see you!” Agnes said.

  Regis nodded. “He wants to see both of you, too. He’s burning to come home, you can just tell. He’s trying to do what’s right for Mom, but…it’s all wrong! Obviously, especially if she’s painting him. We have to convince her…”

  Just then the headlights rounded the corner, down by the curved stone wall and privet hedge, and a car came into view. Cece gasped, and Regis laughed out loud. It was an old car—a Volvo or a Volkswagen, something round all over—every inch of its surface painted with tiny figures in a million bright colors.

  “Who is it?” Cece asked.

  “It’s the archangel,” Regis said, smiling.

  “Brendan,” Agnes said as he got out of the car.

  His bright red hair glinted in the porch light. He had a smile big enough for everyone, but eyes only for Agnes. She felt herself blush as he came closer, not looking away.

  “Hi,” Agnes said.

  “Hi, Agnes,” he said.

  “Hey, Brendan,” Regis said. “What brings you out here?”

  “I had to come see about Agnes,” he said.

  “Perfect timing,” Regis said. “Cece and I were just going inside.”

  “No, we weren’t! We were just talking about Dad, and—”

  “C’mon, Cece,” Regis said, hand on her shoulder. “I’ll play you in chess.”

  “You always beat me. It’s no fun.”

  “I’m the oldest sister, which means you have to listen to me. Besides, if you want to be in my wedding, you have to toe the line.”

  “You’re being cruel and unusual!” Cece wailed, but she followed Regis into the house.

  Alone on the porch with Brendan, Agnes straightened her head bandage. She hoped she looked okay. She sort of wanted to throttle Regis for leaving her alone with the boy from the hospital, and she also sort of wanted to thank her. Her head was spinning. The dizziness made her wobble, even though she was sitting down, and she touched her forehead to steady herself.

  “You okay?” Brendan asked, leaning over to touch her shoulder.

  “I’m fine. I get dizzy.”

  “That’s not uncommon, after a closed head injury.”

  “A what? I thought I had a fractured skull.”

  “You do,” Brendan said, sitting beside her. “Luckily it was just a linear fracture; the more serious injury was the concussion. You sustained a blunt-force trauma by striking that rock. That’s what caused your seizure, and what’s making you feel dizzy now. It will pass, as you heal.”

  “You sound like a doctor,” she said.

  “That’s what I want to be,” he said. “I just took my MSATs.”

  “Your what?”

  “Medical school admissions tests. I went to nursing school first, because that’s what I could afford. I knew I wanted to go into medicine. I don’t like to see people suffer; I want to make them better.”

  Agnes looked into his eyes, saw the fire there. She thought of how Regis called him an archangel, wondered if there was some truth there. Agnes had been waiting for a vision for so long, she had just about given up hope. But gazing at Brendan, she felt ripples under her skin.

  “Who do you know who suffered?” she asked.

  “My brother,” he said. “He had leukemia.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. Without even having to think, she reached for his hand.

  “It was when we were young. I was seven, and he was two. He had just started running—not walking, running. And he could throw…man, he could whip a ball at you like he was Roger Clemens. His name was Patrick, but we called him Paddy.”

  Agnes held her feelings inside. She knew the power of nicknames. They were tribal, like drumbeats, calling you straight to your family campfire. Glancing at the window, she saw Regis and Cece peeking out, to see what was going on. When they were small, her father had called Regis “Owl,” because she never slept. The memory came flying back.

  “What happened to Paddy?”

  “He got sick. We didn’t know what it was at first; it seemed like a really bad cold that wouldn’t go away. But it just kept getting worse, so my mom took him to the ER. They tested his blood, and that’s when we knew.”

  “And you tried to help him…”

  “As much as I could. I’d play catch with him, even when he was in his bed. But he bruised so easily. They made me stop—the ball hurt him if he missed.” Brendan paused. “There were some periods when they wouldn’t let me in his room at all. He was so susceptible to infection.”

  Agnes blinked, imagining the brothers being kept apart, how hard it must have been.

  “I wanted to give him my bone marrow; brothers can sometimes donate for each other, you know? But we weren’t compatible. That’s how I found out I was adopted—my parents couldn’t conceive for a long time, so they adopted me.”

  “You didn’t know before?”

  Brendan shook his head. “We’re Irish. That means we don’t talk about anything.”

  Agnes nodded. That sounded very familiar.

  “Paddy lost his hair from the chemo,” Brendan said. “I gave him a Red Sox cap. He was just learning to talk, and he’d say ‘me hat,’ and smile, pointing at his baseball cap. He was so proud of it. When he died, we buried him with it.”

  “I’m so sorry he died,” Agnes said.

  “I know. Me too. He was the greatest kid.”

  “He’s the reason you’re going to be a doctor,” Agnes said. “And he
lp lots of other kids.”

  “I hope so,” Brendan said.

  “Your parents must be so proud of you.”

  He shook his head. “They can’t see it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Brendan was looking down at her hand, still holding his. His gaze felt like a laser beam on her skin. She felt trills across her nerve endings, all up and down her arm. When he raised his eyes to meet hers, she felt the same tingling sensation in her face, in her eyes. “There are two ways of dealing with grief,” he said. “One is to open up to it—to love people and the world more than ever, because you know how short life is, and how precious. The other way…”

  Agnes waited, on the edge of her seat. She thought of her own family, knowing that they had faced grief all their own, that her father’s going to jail had been the death of how they had once been. She had felt so abandoned, as if all the world’s goodness had drained away, and as if bad things were closing in, waiting to harm them even more.

  “The other way is bad,” she said. “You feel so shut out, and alone. Closed off from help. It’s so dark.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s like prison.”

  Agnes felt a sharp pain in her heart, thinking of her father behind the Portlaoise walls, locked in, away from everyone he loved. What did Brendan know about that?

  “Do you mean like actual prison?” she asked. “With bars and locks?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I mean the kind you put yourself in. Anyone can go to prison. Anyone. You can take drugs, like some people. Or you can drink booze, like my parents. You build walls, lock yourself into your misery, until it becomes the only thing you know. You’re alone in there with your demons, and the people you love can’t get in, and you and the demons can’t get out.”

  “Your parents have been in there since Paddy died?”

  “Pretty much. They try to get sober now and then, but they always go back to the bottle. It’s so much easier for them. See, once you get used to living that way, all numb and locked in, real life can start to feel really raw. If they ever really decided to stop drinking, they’d have to face the truth about Paddy. That he’s gone. Their real son is gone, and I’m left.”

  “You’re their real son, too,” Agnes said. “If they adopted you, you are….”

  “I wish they saw it that way.”

  “You’re as Irish as they come. That red hair.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “They made sure of it. Irishness was a requirement of the people at Catholic Charities and Adoption Services, they told me that much when they told me the truth, after Paddy got sick. Before they hit the bottle, and locked themselves in. Time passes people by in prison…”

  “I know,” Agnes said, lowering her head, thinking of her father. All the time they’d missed together, and all the time they were still missing…

  “Anyway, I came to see how you are,” Brendan said abruptly. “And because of what you said that night, when I was with you in the ER.”

  Agnes smiled, but inside she felt unsettled. What had she said? She tried to concentrate and remember. She could feel the bright lights shining in her eyes, the doctors suturing her head, the pressure of her headache, bursting at her temples. She remembered weeping, wanting her parents. Then darkness, and a tunnel, a feeling she was falling. She was dying.

  Her heart stopping. Black all around. A voice, a clear voice. What had it said? And what did she say in response?

  “You,” she began. “You want to be a doctor…one who helps children, who treats leukemia?”

  “No,” he said. “I want to be a psychiatrist. I want to treat families.”

  “But Paddy…”

  “Paddy died,” Brendan said. “But we’re still alive. My parents and I. You and your family. I want to keep the living alive, keep them from dying in prison, here on earth.”

  “What did I say?” Agnes whispered. “When I was in the ER?”

  His arm encircled her, so protectively, with such gentleness.

  “You said you’ve been praying for a vision,” Brendan said. “To help you know what to do. You said you’d been wishing for one ever since you were twelve, ever since your father went to jail. And you asked me to help you.”

  “Help me what?”

  “Bring your family back together.”

  Thirteen

  Mom, can we invite Dad for dinner?” Regis asked, and watched.

  Her mother didn’t look up from the sink, where she was washing tomatoes from the convent garden. Running each one under the water, holding it there under the cool stream, placing it on a folded-up paper towel to drain. Her gaze flickered, looking out the window. One little question, and her mother was lost.

  “Mom?”

  “Not tonight, Regis,” her mother said.

  “Why not? He’s back, right there on the beach, so why can’t he come for dinner?”

  “It’s complicated,” her mother said.

  Regis stared. Now, lifting another tomato, her mother’s hands were trembling. Regis could see it from all the way across the counter. She had a hard time holding on—there, now she had a grip, and she held the tomato under the water and there, onto the towel.

  “I’m twenty, Mom. I’m getting married. I think I can handle hearing.”

  Now her mother started on the basil. A big, shaggy bunch of it, bright green, with its sharp licorice smell. One of the novices had brought it over that morning, along with the tomatoes and some zucchini. Regis had answered the door. The young nun hadn’t been much older than Regis, if at all. Her hair was hidden by a white veil.

  “Mom?” Regis prodded.

  “I don’t like to bother you girls with my problems,” her mother said. “But this is hard.”

  “Dad coming home is hard?” Regis asked.

  “Don’t be sarcastic, Regis Maria.”

  “I’m sorry.” Regis exhaled. She wanted everything to happen faster: her parents to get along and be happy, Agnes to heal completely, her own wedding day to arrive. She wanted life to flow in harmony, the way it was supposed to. The nightmare of the last six years was over, wasn’t it? A sense of injustice brought sharp tears to her eyes.

  “No, honey,” her mother said, seeing. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard for you. It’s just that your father and I have a few things to work out.”

  “But you’re not even trying,” Regis said.

  “What makes you think that?” her mother asked. “I’m trying, and so is he. We’ve talked.”

  “Yelled, you mean. Everyone heard you two fighting on the beach. Your voices carried on the wind.”

  Her mother looked a little shocked at that. “Really?”

  Regis nodded. She dabbed angrily at her eyes. “You don’t even know what’s going on,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mom, you haven’t been this happy in over six years. You’re in your studio all the time now, working away. The music’s on. We can hear it coming from your studio at night, and it makes us feel so good. And then we go in to see your work, and it’s amazing.”

  “It is?” her mother asked, frowning.

  “Yes! And it started after Dad got back.”

  Her mother stared down at the tomatoes and basil. Then, to Regis’s surprise, her mother began to talk. Really talk.

  “Regis, your father and I fell in love when we were very young. He was so creative, full of passion for life. I didn’t know artists like him existed.” She paused, trying to come up with the right words. “He launched himself into life, and took me with him. He incorporated his art into our marriage, and everything, even a walk over the hill, became a big adventure.”

  “That’s Dad,” Regis murmured, thinking of how cold and dull the world had looked without him.

  “But honey,” her mother said, “it just wore me down. I spent so much time worrying about him. It was like living on thin ice. I never knew when he’d fall through—and once you got big enough to go with him, and you always did, I felt you’d fa
ll through with him.”

  “He wouldn’t have let me,” Regis said.

  “Think about what happened in Ireland,” her mother said. “You were so traumatized, you didn’t stop shaking for two days. You still have nightmares. Do you know how often you cry in your sleep?”

  “That was because I missed Dad,” Regis said. “Because he was in Ireland, and we couldn’t visit him enough.”

  “It’s because you nearly fell off a cliff into the sea,” her mother said. “And because you saw him kill a man.”

  “That’s why Dad can’t come for dinner?” Regis asked.

  Her mother looked at her as if she were just a child—exasperated and frustrated.

  “You’re forgetting!” Regis said. “You’re painting again. Deep inside, you know that’s because your heart is finally whole again. Dad fills the world with color. He makes everything so vivid and beautiful, and exciting. You love that as much as we do.”

  Her mother’s eyes darkened, as if Regis had just struck a nerve.

  “When Sister Julie came over earlier, bringing the tomatoes and basil,” Regis went on, “I was trying to figure out how old she was. Twenty, twenty-one at the oldest, so pure and holy in her white habit. I looked at her face and thought of Agnes. My sweet holy sister…who nearly killed herself looking for a miracle.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Are you kidding, Mom? Don’t you know? Agnes is desperate to have a vision, like Aunt Bernie. She thinks that divine intervention is the only way to bring the family together. We want Dad to come home.”

  “Oh, Regis,” her mother said.

  “All I know is, Peter and I will never be like this,” Regis said. “We’ll stay together forever.”

  “I hope you do,” her mother said steadily in a way that made Regis feel furious—because deep down, she thought her mother felt the opposite.

  Regis grabbed the car keys and walked out of the kitchen. As she drove down the long drive, she thought of how Gothic the Academy looked. Even on this bright summer day, it was all stone, all gray and dark and imposing. The main building’s slate roof glinted like cold steel in the hot sun. The chapel’s steeple looked like a black needle piercing the sky. A group of nuns, walking from the convent toward the vineyard, looked like shadows in their black habits. Although Regis loved the nuns, had always felt as if they were extra aunts, she shivered now.