“What did your sister have to say?”
“Not much…except…she’s coming to visit. She’ll be here next week.”
“Next week! But that’s not enough time to get ready for a visitor.”
“She already got the ticket. Besides, it’s Merce. There’s nothing to get ready.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Judith snapped. “Of course there is.
I need to get the guest room in order. And plan some activities for her. And Mummy and Daddy and Ruth are here for dinner with the Wilkinsons week after next. What will we do with a fifteen-year-old during a dinner with the Wilkinsons? We’ll talk to your brother—”
“We can’t tell Joe,” Callum stammered. “It’s a surprise. Just me and you know.”
“This is rather strange, travelling all this way and keeping it a secret from her own brother.” She studied his face. “Can I see the letter?”
He held it out, glad he’d had the instinct to hide the first page right off. There was only one page now, the part that Mercedes had written for public eyes.
“Is everything all right, Callum?” Judith asked, taking the envelope.
He nodded, forcing a smile. Things were far from all right.
Callum had gone to St. Jude an innocent man. He’d come back a murderer. The fact that he hadn’t actually killed anyone was irrelevant. He took full responsibility.
Initially, the need to escape the island undetected was enough to keep his mind on constant alert. Back in New York, the subterfuge continued as he concocted answers to polite questions about his family and the trip, creating layers of lies and omissions, all the while consumed by the knowledge of how his life had changed overnight yet trying to act as if nothing had changed at all. Each night he would semi-awaken, gasping for air, clawing at the bedclothes in a sweat of terror, overcome by the sensation of free-falling within an endless abyss and the certainty that if he didn’t wake up he would drown in a bottomless black hole.
Each morning he reminded himself that it was over. He’d had three letters from Mercedes, and although they were full of false cheer, they made no mention of trouble. If they could bluff their way through just a little longer, all would be well. Not the same as before. Never that. But they would manage.
Then the fourth letter arrived.
When Mercedes stepped from the train, Callum’s heart felt ready to break with the pressure of trying to smile. She was haggard and drawn, dressed in the heavy brown coat he’d bought her three years before. Too big then, now it was too small.
Once they’d escaped the overcrowded platform, he held out his arms. She immediately broke into tears. His smile disappeared. They stood in the June dusk holding each other for a long time. People passed by all around them. Aromas of meat and exotic spices rose with the steam from a food vendor’s cart. A young boy waving a newspaper shouted to the passers-by jostling their way along the busy sidewalks. Taxi drivers cursed and yelled and honked their horns. Mercedes buried her head in Callum’s shoulder, oblivious to it all.
Finally, they walked to a nearby diner. Callum ordered tea and sandwiches.
“You cold, Merce?” Despite the warmth, her coat was buttoned to the neck.
“Not really. I’m just tired. I’m tired of it all, and it’s only a couple of months.”
“If it’s still that early, how can you be sure?”
“I’ve never been late before, like a clock I am.” She closed her eyes for a second. “Besides, I just know. Some things you know even if you wish you didn’t.”
The waitress brought their order. Callum concentrated on pouring tea. “There are places where you can have it taken care of, you know?”
“There’s adoption everywhere, even home there’s orphan-ages—” She stopped abruptly. “Callum! How can you talk of such a thing?”
“Because it’s not your fault.”
Her voice fell to a tiny whisper. “I killed a man, Callum.”
“But you had to—”
“I know, I know I had to. And I’ll learn to live with it because I had to. But a baby is different, a poor tiny baby. God could never forgive that.”
“There’s times when there’s exceptions even to God’s laws.”
She leaned in. “There can’t be exceptions to this. What has this place done to you? You never would have said this a few years ago.”
The righteousness in her voice triggered something deep within him. “This place, as you call it, opened my eyes, but no more so than our very own little St. Jude. The world is full of bad people, Merce. I may be one of them. That bastard certainly was. But you’re one of the good ones. Don’t let this ruin your life.”
Mercedes reached for his hand. “This baby is the only innocent one in this. If we do something to hurt him, then it’s all over for us.”
He felt again the gnaw of true powerlessness. She was still a child for all her eyes had seen, as blameless as the baby growing inside her.
“You sound as though you’ve thought it through, like you know what you want.”
She shook her head. “I only know what I can’t do. Funny thing is, I didn’t know that until you brought it up. But I mean it. Everything else is just so awful, don’t mention that again. I can’t stand to think about it. Or maybe I’m afraid I’ll start to think about it, and then I’m forever the devil’s no matter what I do.”
The tears started again then. At first she wiped them away, but others just kept rolling down her neck and under her coat collar. She gave up trying to stop them. Still, the waitress dropped the bill onto the table without giving them a second glance.
“Merce, I got to ask you something.” He forced himself to meet her eye. “Is there…well, is there any chance the baby could be Dad’s?”
If he’d punched her in the face she couldn’t have looked more shocked.
“I’m sorry Merce, but if it is, then…for the baby’s sake you have to…”
She squeezed his hand so hard it hurt. “No, Dad didn’t do anything. Paddy just sort of pushed him onto the bed. I’m not sure he was fully awake even.”
Relief surged through Callum. “I’m sorry, I just didn’t know what to think. Mainly I tried not to think about it at all. The whole idea was so horrible.”
There was a hint of a smile as she nodded. “Until this minute I didn’t think anything worse was possible. Something to be grateful for, I suppose.”
There was no sarcasm in her tone, no undercurrent of anger.
Trying to hide his own, Callum turned his attention to the steady flow of people passing by the diner window. Several glanced in. Did they wonder about the story unfolding just beyond the glass, about the young girl huddled into her ugly winter coat?
Callum placed several bills beneath the untouched sandwiches. “Let’s go home, Merce. We got a nice warm bed waiting just for you.”
In the car Mercedes sat quietly, eyes downcast, hands in her pockets. She seemed unaware of her surroundings, even though it was like nothing she had seen before. But as they drove onto the Brooklyn Bridge, she sat bolt upright.
“How long does it take?” she asked, one hand on the door, the other on the dash.
Callum smiled. “Don’t worry, it’s just a few minutes.”
Mercedes said nothing else until she had watched the bridge recede behind them out the rear windshield. “Does your wife know yet?” she said then.
“I didn’t say anything in case you decided—” He stopped.
“Sorry.”
“It’s the kind of thing a woman should know is going on in her house.”
He hit the steering wheel. “Nothing’s ‘going on.’ Stop acting like it is.”
She flinched and sank further down into her coat.
“Oh Merce, I’m sorry.” He reached over and touched her shoulder. “It’s just that it’s so wrong. As for Judith, I can tell her right away, or you can, or we can wait.”
“Would she think I should do something about it?”
“I don’t know. We ta
lked about having a baby. So far we haven’t been blessed.”
As the irony hit him, so did something else. “Wait a minute. I just had an idea, maybe a solution. Your baby - could it be our baby, mine and Judith’s?”
Mercedes’ face showed a glimmer of hope. “Could we really do that?” Then her voice wavered. “But would she want to after how it was made?”
“We don’t have to tell her about that, do we? We’d have to tell her everything.”
They were quiet again. Rows of brownstone townhouses, interspersed with tall brick apartment buildings and lower-level shop fronts, passed by outside the window. Eventually they came to a street lined with newer homes, none of which bore the slightest resemblance to the house they’d grown up in. Callum pulled into the driveway of a white two-story with a covered veranda running across the front.
Mercedes stared at the house. “My God, Callum! Is this yours?”
“It sure is, thanks to Judith’s father,” he said, trying to hide his resentment. “How about we don’t say anything yet? I need to think it through.”
“Okay. And thanks, Callum. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I’m here, Merce, whatever you need.”
Inside, Judith bustled toward them, her full skirt swishing to a standstill as she stopped in front of Mercedes. Callum stumbled through the introductions - his dishevelled sister in her too-small coat, his sophisticated wife in satin blouse and pearls.
Under cover of getting the tea ready, he reinvented the lie of their father going to Toronto before quickly moving on to discuss Mercedes’ trip, the weather in St. Jude, news of old neighbours, whatever he could think of to fill the silence.
Judith let him ramble on. Finally, she looked across the table at Mercedes. “Why would your father move away without telling you?”
“He was always talking about it so I suppose he just up and went,” Callum said.
Judith looked up at him. “You don’t seem very concerned.”
“He’s a grown man.”
“But he’s old and alone. Don’t you worry?”
“He can take care of himself—”
“He’s with Paddy—” Mercedes said in the same instant. She looked at Callum.
Judith was watching them closely. “Paddy? Who’s Paddy?”
Mercedes looked away. “He was—”
Callum jumped in. “He went to Toronto at the same time and they used to talk about it at the bar so they probably went together.” He stood over Judith, teapot poised.
“I need a cup, dear.”
Callum’s laugh was too loud. “Oh, right. Of course you do.”
As he got a cup and filled it, Judith’s questions started. How had the men travelled to Toronto, did they have money, what was Paddy like, did he have family? Her eyes rarely left Mercedes, who kept adding more cream and sugar into her cup, noisily stirring and sloshing. Callum answered whenever he could, but he had to be careful. After all, he would hardly be expected to know very much.
Still, there was a limit to how much his sister could take.
“You’re looking some worn out there, Mercie, girl,” he finally interrupted. “Do you want to go to bed soon?”
“Please,” she said meekly, so unlike the brassy sister he was used to.
Judith sipped her tea, her eyes peering at Mercedes over the rim of the cup. “This Paddy Griffin doesn’t sound like the best character.”
“Just a local,” Callum said. “How’s your tea there, Judith? More sugar?”
She ignored him. “Weren’t you afraid without your father?”
“It’s a small town,” he answered for Mercedes. “Not much happens.”
Mercedes’ eyes, wide and bright, met his for a moment.
“It must have been a difficult trip,” Judith went on.
“I got seasick,” Mercedes said, her voice weak.
“Typical Hann you are, my girl,” Callum teased. “Can’t swim in the water, can’t stand to be on it either. Just like myself.” Judith eyed him curiously. “But didn’t you work on a boat back there?”
“That I did. Longest days of my life. I was supposed to be catching fish, but I always started out feeding them first. Kind of put me off eating them for a while.”
Mercedes pushed her cup away. After a look from Judith, she pulled it back. A thin milky puddle had sloshed into the saucer. Mercedes stood, one hand on the table, the other on the back of her chair. The tip of her tongue slid across her dry lips.
Callum leaned far forward so that Judith had little choice but to look at him and away from Mercedes. “Is everything ready upstairs? She’s exhausted.”
“Of course it is,” Judith muttered, her eyebrows raised.
“Come on, Merce, I’ll tuck you in.” As they headed up the stairs he called back in a firm voice, “I’ll be right down, Judith.”
As soon as they were in her bedroom, Mercedes whispered, “I don’t think she likes me.”
Callum turned on the lamp on the bedside table. “She’s just getting to know you, is all. It’ll be right as rain by morning. Don’t worry about another thing tonight,” he added. “You needs a solid sleep so we can handle all the other stuff tomorrow.”
“I’ll try but it’s been hard to sleep.” Her voice fell to a frightened whisper. “It’s the dreams. Every night it’s like they’re waiting for me, you know?”
The sound of running water and the rattle of cups and saucers drifted up to them.
“I do.” He put his arms around her. “I’m right across the hall. If you need anything, anything at all, just call out to me.”
“Thanks, Callum.”
“You did the right thing coming to me. Maybe tonight we’ll both get a decent sleep.” With another hug, he left her to settle in and went back downstairs.
Judith’s bright red fingernails drummed the countertop.
“Your sister’s pretty. She looks tired, though.”
“She is.” He took a dishtowel from the drawer. They said nothing while he dried the dishes and put them in the cupboard. Judith reached out to take the dishtowel from him. “I’m sure she’ll be her old self again by morning. Not that I know what that is,” she added.
“Morning will be here soon enough, too,” he said. “I think I’ll go to bed.”
“How long is she staying?”
“I didn’t want to ask when she was leaving on her first night here.”
“What took you so long?”
He yawned widely. “When?”
“From the train station.” Judith wiped down the perfectly clean table.
“Oh…the train was delayed. One glitch and the whole schedule goes off.”
“Did she say anything else about him?”
“What? Who?” Did Judith always jump from subject to subject, Callum wondered, or was his conscience making him uneasy?
“Upstairs. I wondered if she said anything more about your father.”
He leaned back into the counter. “No, Judith. Nothing.”
“What about that other man, I forget his name.”
“No,” he said quickly, “nothing there either.”
Judith folded the towel, her eyes on his face. “What was his name again?”
“Paddy,” he mumbled.
She leaned forward as if she hadn’t heard.
“His name is Paddy Griffin,” he repeated, forcing himself to be patient.
“Paddy. Of course, Paddy Griffin. Has anybody talked to Paddy’s family?”
“I don’t know, Judith.” Why did she keep saying that name, as if it was a name like any other, like Joe or Frank, benign and harmless? “I’m just glad she’s here.”
“She seems a bit off to me.”
Callum crossed his arms. “How the hell would you know? You just met her.”
“Callum! Don’t use that tone with me.”
“Sorry,” he said, and he was.
“I can sense there’s something wrong. A woman knows these things.”
“Can
’t we just leave it till morning?”
“Fine.” Her nails tapped the counter. “But if there’s anything to discuss, we’d best do it before she wakes up.”
He really did not want to talk. All he wanted was to go to bed and go to sleep and forget about it all for a few unconscious hours. But he realized that Judith had a point. He sat down. “You’re right, Judith. Merce needs our help.”
She stopped tapping. “What exactly is going on?”
There was something antagonistic in the timbre of her voice, the haughty way she held her head, but he ignored it. He had a story to invent.
“Well, you see, there was this boy in the next town to ours,” he began.
“A boy?” Her mouth curled in a knowing smirk. “Of course, yes, a boy.”
“Anyway,” Callum continued, “they fell in love - at least Merce did - and he said he wanted to marry her. Then his parents got wind of it and shipped him off to the Brothers to finish high school. I don’t think he even knows about Merce’s condition.”
“Aha! So! Mercedes has a condition.”
“Yes, Judith. She’s pregnant. That’s why she’s here.”
She threw her hands out. “And what are we supposed to do with her?”
“I’m not sure. But she’s my sister and I have to help her.
There’s no one else.”
“Can’t we do something with it? You know what I mean, don’t you?”
He caught on faster than Mercedes had. “She said that would be the most sinful thing she could do in this whole mess.”
Judith rolled her eyes. “Well, she’ll have to put it up for adoption. Then she can go home and no one will ever know.”
She thought a moment. “I might have an idea.”
Callum felt an instant relief. Here, finally, was someone who could take charge, who would know what to do. Judith had a mind designed for the intricacies of life. She knew what someone meant even when they said differently, or when something insignificant mattered and when it didn’t. He, on the other hand, was not good at figuring out such complexities and preferred to accept life at face value or, since he’d met Judith, take her word on it.
“Up near my uncle’s hotel there’s a convent, St. Agatha’s, that takes in girls in this situation.” She waved her hand disdainfully. “One of the Barry girls went there.”
Mercy of St Jude Page 17