Sandcastles

by Luanne Rice

  “Bernie,” Tom said, standing beside her.

  “I know,” she said.

  “You don’t know,” he said. “You have no idea.”

  She jerked her head, to look into his eyes. Expecting to see resignation, maybe sadness, she saw fire and anger instead.

  “Sister Bernadette,” he said. “Mother Superior of Star of the Sea.”

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s who I am.”

  “So much so that you’ve blocked everything else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That boy. He could have been our son.”

  “Tom, I know…”

  “Bernie, don’t you ever think of it? Think about him? Think about us? Think about how we were? What might have been?”

  “I think about it,” she whispered. “Of course I do…”

  “I’m haunted, Bernie. I’m like a ghost, do you know that? I’m here every day, working in your garden just so I can be near you.”

  “I don’t want you to feel haunted,” she said.

  “The only way for me to stop that,” he said, “is to go back to Ireland.”

  “Don’t say that!” she burst out, turning away.

  Tom grabbed her shoulders, shaking her, accidentally dislodging her veil. She reached up, tucked her hair back inside. He barely noticed, just staring her down.

  He had never left Star of the Sea, never worked anywhere else. He had never taken any other job—even though he had had plenty of offers. Many board members, benefactors, parents of students had tried to lure him away. And although Bernie could never admit it, she knew she would be lost if he were to go.

  “Think about it,” he said. “Brendan has shown us what’s possible. People can be reunited.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We can go to Dublin. You and I.”

  “My place is here,” she whispered. “You know that!”

  “Yes, I know it. Do you think I could ever forget? But I saw your eyes, that first moment when Brendan said he was adopted—I saw what it did to you. The same thing it did to me, Bernie. Made me think of…”

  “Our baby,” she finished.

  “Yes,” Tom said. “Our baby. Ours, Bernie. It might have just lasted for a minute—before you pushed it away and got back to business, being Sister Bernadette…”

  “It didn’t last just a minute,” she said.

  “No?”

  She shook her head. Her heart was in her throat, her blood felt like galloping horses. She turned away, leaving Tom in the sunshine as she walked into the grotto. The summer day was hot, just as it had been twenty-four years ago, when she’d prayed for guidance—hoping to be told she should marry Tom, but seeing Mary instead.

  What if Honor, in her letter, had been right, and Bernie had interpreted everything the wrong way? She had felt Mary calling her, pulling her into her life. And Bernie had been so honored, so incredibly moved, that Mary had appeared to her, calling her to follow her early dreams and become a nun.

  But Mary had had another aspect, as well. She had been a wife and mother. No woman had ever loved her family more…. What if Bernie had given all that up, just because of her own Catholic upbringing, the pride of two families pushing her into the convent, crossed signals of a miraculous vision?

  “I saw Mary here,” she said now, her voice so hoarse she could barely speak.

  “I know,” Tom said. “You told me back then. When you turned down my proposal once and for all. How could I compete with the Virgin Mary?”

  Bernie stared at the cross. Another mother’s son had died; Bernie had always related to the Blessed Mother, imagining that she knew how it felt to lose a son. But her son wasn’t lost—he hadn’t died. He was living out a life, perhaps in Ireland. The nuns in Dublin would know. There would be records.

  Tom walked closer to the wall, where the two messages had been carved. Bernie felt a shiver go down her back as she watched him trace the words with his finger.

  “Song of Songs,” Tom said. “Like you said that first day, when I called you down here to see the first message: a love song.”

  “A love story,” she corrected.

  “The kid didn’t do this, or so he says,” Tom said, still facing the wall.

  “He didn’t,” Bernie said.

  “How do you know for sure?” he asked.

  Ever the stonemason, Tom picked up one of the fallen stones—the one that had tumbled two nights ago, when Bernie had tried to deepen the carving.

  “Because I did it,” she said.

  Tom turned slowly, holding the rock. His eyes were wide open, and Bernie felt shock waves pouring off him.

  “My great-grandfather built this place,” she said. “I still have his stonecutting tools, in the shed behind…”

  “The cloister,” Tom said. “I know.”

  “I used to watch my grandfather, when I was a child. I saw how he did it, and I used to admire the way he left his mark on the rock, on the land. It sometimes seemed to me like prayer made visible.”

  “Prayer—”

  Bernie nodded. “It takes such devotion, to work with stones and rocks,” she said. “It takes a very deep faith to believe that you can make any difference, any at all, when it comes to the immovable, the impenetrable.”

  “But why did you do this, Bernie? Why here?”

  “I have visited this grotto every single day since I was a very young woman. The Virgin Mary came to me here; I wanted her to come again. I wanted to know. I wanted her to tell me what to do.”

  “So you had to write her a love story?”

  “She knows my love story,” Bernie said.

  “What did she tell you to do?” Tom asked.

  Bernie closed her eyes. She felt the dark, closed space growing hotter, stiller. She swooned, and had to reach out her hand, to touch the walls with her fingertips, just to steady herself. Tom was right there, standing beside her. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t have to.

  “Bernie?” he asked, standing so close she could feel his breath on her forehead.

  She opened her eyes. Finally, as if for the first time, she opened her eyes and saw. Tom looked just as he had the first time she saw him: exactly. He was so tall. His eyes were so blue. He looked as he had all his life here in Black Hall, and over in Dublin.

  “What did she tell you to do?” Tom asked.

  And Bernie told him.

  Twenty-nine

  Honor’s nerves were raw, waiting. Low tide was extreme; tonight there would be a full moon. She gathered moonstones, trying to calm herself. When the tide began to rise, she retreated to the stone circle. John had used the largest pieces of rock for the outside ring—protecting the inner circles from waves and wind. Yet the labyrinth was still vulnerable; the slightest breezes covered the smaller stones with drifts of sand.

  Starting at the outer edge, she began to walk. Around the circle once, then left into the next ring, doubling back on herself. It felt good to be out in the sun and the salt air, and she felt John’s presence as she moved through the labyrinth, deeper into its center.

  Once she reached the very core, she sat down. Her heart was beating hard. She sat very still, looking straight out. The Sound was calm tonight; there hadn’t been any storms at sea to stir up the waves. There was barely a whisper of wind; the surface registered hardly a ripple.

  “What are you doing in there?”

  She heard his voice before she saw him coming up behind her, and she swiveled slightly, to see him standing on the bank—dressed in the same jeans and T-shirt and old sneakers he’d worn to the police station.

  “Waiting for you,” she said.

  “The tide’s coming in.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said, her mouth dry. “Oh God, John. What happened? What did they say to you?”

  “I have to tell you something,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “Can I come in there with you, and tell you?” he asked.

  Honor nodded, making room at the labyrint
h’s center. She watched him kick off his sneakers, jump down from the seawall, and walk over to the outer circle. Instead of following the circuitous path, he stepped over each line of stones to get straight to her. He brushed her shoulder as he sat down beside her, and she saw him holding himself back, knew that he was figuring out how to tell her this.

  She knew him so well; his touch was so familiar. Yet this was brand-new. The look in his eyes, so tender and bruised, nearly as worried as she’d seen him in Ireland, when the police were taking him away. Had something happened at the police station? Were they going to take him into custody?

  “What is it, John?” she asked. “Tell me, I can’t stand it.”

  “I just saw Regis,” he said.

  “Bernie told me she was in the library,” Honor said. “I wanted to give her the chance to be alone for a while. Breaking up with Peter is such a big deal. I can’t let her see how happy I am about it, so I’m staying away. I’m worried that she’ll see the relief in my eyes.”

  “That’s not why she disappeared,” John said.

  “What do you mean?” Honor asked.

  He paused, trying to find the words.

  “Was it because I got angry at you last night, at the beach movie? I know it upset her terribly…and I’m so sorry. I really overreacted. I just thought—”

  “That’s not it either,” John said. “It has to do with Ballincastle. What happened there…”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, frozen, scared by his tone.

  “Something that Regis just remembered,” John said. “Honor, you’ll tell me that I should have told you. Maybe I should have. But I didn’t want Regis to suffer more than she already had, and I didn’t want you to, either.”

  “What is it, John?”

  “That day,” John said. “When Greg White showed up…”

  “He attacked you and Regis,” Honor said.

  “You know what I told the police,” he said, watching her.

  “You told them it was self-defense,” she said. “It was, right?”

  “It was Regis,” he said, his voice so low, she could barely hear.

  “What?” she asked, feeling a shiver down her spine.

  “She threw herself against him, Honor. To keep him from killing me. Grabbed a piece of driftwood and hit him with it. And that’s when he went over. When we all did.”

  “She—Regis hit him?” she asked with disbelief. “Killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh God, Regis,” Honor said, her heart pounding, thinking of Regis at fourteen. How terrified she must have been. How brave…She made a small fist, fingers closing around the ring she had put on earlier that day. “Why didn’t she ever tell me?”

  “Because she didn’t remember,” John said. “It all happened so fast. It was a blur, and she was so young—she couldn’t process it, and really, neither could I.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, then?”

  “Oh, Honor. My instincts kicked in. I didn’t want her involved. I was worried enough about her. I thought if I told you, told anyone, the story would get muddled. We’d have to decide what to do. So I just decided myself.”

  “God, John,” Honor said.

  “I couldn’t bring Regis in. I couldn’t stand to think of her getting caught up with the investigation. It was just my word, and hers. I could already see what they thought my word was worth.”

  “So you protected her.”

  “As much as I could,” John said. “After the fact.”

  “It wasn’t after the fact,” she said, lowering her head to her knees, taking the information in. “It was very much during the fact—while the gardai were charging you, and the courts were sentencing you…you kept Regis out of all of that…”

  “Honor, I promise you—I’m not going to hurt you anymore. Any of you. It’s too much right now. I love you, and I’m going to get out of here. Not forever, but until everything calms down. Until we figure out what to do for Regis—we have to help her….”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Honor said in a low voice.

  “You know that’s the best thing for…”

  “It’s the worst thing,” she said. “For all of us.”

  She touched his lips with her finger. Her thoughts were racing, and she knew they had to get to Regis. The tide was really coming in now, small waves lapping at the outer edge of rocks, trickling in over the rows of pebbles to soak their bare feet and the bottoms of their jeans.

  Honor thought of what Regis had said, about John’s bringing the color back into their lives. He was so passionate, quick to anger, and drawn to dangerous places; and as much as that scared her, it also made him the man she had always loved—always ready to embrace life fully, to love completely, without reservation or limits. She thought of her new paintings and knew that his work, his being, had deeply inspired her own.

  “We’re going to need you now,” she said as the Sound came up another inch. “More than ever.”

  “Even though…”

  “Even though everything,” she said.

  “Chris Kelly came down from Hartford,” John said. “He’s waiting up at the convent. I think we should talk to him, see what he advises.”

  “Advises about what?”

  “Honor, she needed to get this off her chest to me. Do you think it’s going to stop there? Regis is determined to set things straight.”

  “But you’ve already paid—”

  John grabbed her, looked her straight on. She felt the fear well up, suddenly knowing that Regis would never stop until she cleared his name. She jumped up, frantic to see her daughter, talk her out of whatever she might be planning to do. John caught her, steadied her.

  “You mean confess, or set the record straight—in Ireland?”

  “I don’t know,” John said. “You haven’t seen the look in her eyes. But you know Regis.”

  “We can’t let her,” Honor said.

  “Honor,” he asked gently, looking into her eyes. “I love you, and I love her so much. I would do anything I could to keep her from this.”

  “I know,” she said. “You already have.”

  “And look what’s happened. She’s torn up with guilt. All those bad dreams you say she keeps having. Let’s just listen to her. Not try to tell her what she should do, or how she should feel. We can handle this together.”

  “You mean, you’ll stay?” she asked.

  “As long as you want me,” he said. “You just said we need each other. I know how much I need you.”

  Honor nodded, holding her husband in her arms, and he kissed her, filling her with strength and letting her know she wasn’t alone anymore, that maybe she’d never really been alone at all.

  “Chris is waiting,” he said. “Let’s go talk to him. He’ll give us good advice about how to handle it.”

  Honor nodded; John was right. Her bare feet were planted in the sand, and for a moment, she couldn’t quite bear to move. A cool breeze blew off the Sound, from the east. It made her shiver, staring down at John’s labyrinth.

  As they walked away, she reached into the pocket of her jeans, pulled out her hand and poured the moonstones she had gathered into his open palm.

  John’s gaze traveled up the hill, took in the stone walls reaching across the Academy land. They were dark in the twilight, but sparkling with quartz and mica, as if stars had fallen to earth, become trapped in the walls themselves. Honor thought of Cormac Sullivan, of all that he had brought with him from Ballincastle, of all that he had given to her family.

  The big orange moon rose out of the Sound. It crested over the smooth surface, glimmering on the small waves. Heading home to see Regis, and Agnes, and Cecilia, Honor stared at her husband with fierce love, here on the beach where they had first met.

  Ten yards from the labyrinth, John suddenly stopped walking. As she watched, he opened his hand, looked down at the moonstones she had given him. Was he remembering the ones he had found for her, the night he proposed? Without s
peaking, he turned and led her back, hand-in-hand.

  Bending over, John let the moonstones she had chosen trickle from his fingers, into the labyrinth’s exact center, where he and Honor had just been sitting. They formed a swirl, like the whorl inside a shell, something eternal without beginning or end. As she followed it with her eyes, from the inside out, she saw that the circle’s outer edge led her gaze straight up the vineyard’s gentle slope.

  To the stone wall. Did he plan it that way? She didn’t know, and she knew it didn’t really matter. It all connected. It always had, and it always would. The stone wall had endured all this time, holding back secrets of love and sorrow. She knew that the sea would wash the labyrinth away, just like their sandcastles of long ago.

  But Honor also knew what the people of John’s family had known all along: that rocks and stones were made to last. The Sullivans used material forged by fire and ice; you might knock it down, but they could always rebuild. When the moonstones drifted out with the tide, her family would find them again. John took her outstretched hand. The labyrinth he had built was proof of how far they would travel, how hard they would work to find the core of what mattered.

  The air smelled of salt and grapes, the end of summer. Honor shivered in the light breeze, and John put his arm around her as they walked back down the beach. Across the marsh grass, she could see the lights of their house, just coming on, cozy and warm. The girls were there, waiting for them. Regis needed her parents, and they were on their way.

  The moon rose higher. If Honor turned around, she would see its path on the water, stretching all the way across the sea, all the way to Ireland. But for now, she had eyes only for home.

  Epilogue

  Dublin’s Four Courts stood on the bank of the River Liffey. The copper-covered shallow lantern dome and six-columned Corinthian portico, and a sculpture of Moses flanked by Justice and Mercy, were reflected in the pewter gray river, coursing out to sea beneath one somber bridge after another.

  Early that morning rain had poured down, blowing off the Irish Sea sideways, in slanting sheets. Although the rain had stopped for the moment, the sky remained overcast with low clouds. To Agnes, staring at it through the huge windows, it echoed the weather on that fateful day six years earlier. She could almost feel the wind roaring up the cliff.