Nurture

by Susan X Meagher

  "You know I'm not allowed to do that," he said.

  "You're boxing me into a corner, Father," Ryan said, shaking her head. "I want to have a relationship with an organized church, but the Catholic church is making it very, very difficult for me to stick with them. Jamie's grandfather is going to perform our commitment ceremony. I think it's time we considered joining his church. It hardly makes sense to belong here and go to the Episcopal church to bless us before God."

  His head cocked quizzically. "Her grandfather is an Episcopal priest?"

  "Yes." She leveled her gaze at him and said, "Jamie's an Episcopalian, Father. She comes to church with me because I've been happy here, and because it's where the rest of the family goes. But we're going to have to think long and hard before we continue to financially support this parish. I just don't think I can participate in my own oppression." With that, she nodded her head once, and left the room, leaving a befuddled, saddened man behind her.

  Pissed off and agitated, Ryan found herself automatically heading over to her Aunt Maeve's house. She knocked perfunctorily, then opened the door. "Anyone home?"

  "Is that my Siobhan?" Maeve's soft, lyrical voice called out.

  "Sure is," Ryan called back, smiling at the always-warm welcome her aunt had for her. "Am I disturbing anything?" She took off her jacket and hung it on the front door knob.

  Maeve walked into the parlor and smiled. She put her hands on her hips and asked, "When will you believe that's not possible? A visit from you is preferable to anything I could have possibly been doing."

  Ryan went to her and hugged her tight, feeling a little ungainly when she felt her aunt's much smaller and frailer body in her arms. "You say I throw the blarney around," she said, laughing. "You're not bad at it yourself."

  "Every word is true," Maeve said. "Now go say hello to your father. He's outside trying to make a vegetable garden out of that sorry excuse for a yard. I swear the Aran Islands are better suited to gardening."

  "Oh, it can't be that bad," Ryan said.

  "Yes, it is," Maeve insisted. "Thirty-odd years of the pounding of children's feet, and what seems like the remnants of a quarry. Your father says there isn't a wheelbarrow full of good soil in the whole patch."

  "I'll go give him my expert opinion," Ryan said. "He loves to be second-guessed."

  Maeve laughed. "Oh, you know him well, sweetheart. Have fun." Ryan had only gone a few feet when Maeve asked, "Will you stay for dinner?"

  "Thanks, but I can't. I have softball practice tonight. I just stopped by because I've been to see Father Pender."

  Maeve's eyebrows rose. "Father Pender?"

  Ryan made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "I had the crazy idea that I might be able to have a rational discussion with him about this ridiculous Proposition 22."

  "Oh, dear," Maeve said. "I'm so embarrassed about that whole affair. They tried to get us to take signs for our yards after Mass on Sunday. I thought your father was going to take the whole lot of them and rip them to shreds."

  "Then we're probably in the same mood," Ryan said, smiling. "Ignore any cursing you hear, okay?"

  Maeve playfully put her hands over her ears. "Hear no evil, Siobhan."

  Ryan saw her dad working on a small patch of the small yard, hefting spades full of dirt into a wheelbarrow. "Trying to grow rocks?" she asked.

  Martin turned, and his determined expression immediately grew into a wide smile. "There's my favorite girl! What brings you to the western part of the bay?"

  "I was visiting a former friend of yours," she said, her smile now absent.

  He looked confused for a moment, then scowled. "What's your business with that blackguard?"

  She put her hands into the pockets of her jeans, then rocked on her heels. "I was in a hurry to waste some time," she said. "Sometimes I think that reason and logic rule the world." She gave him an abashed smile and added, "They don't."

  He wiped his brow, then took off his leather gloves and twitched his head towards the picnic table. "Take a load off, love, and tell me what happened."

  She kissed him when he got near, smiling when her lips touched the fine dusting of earth on his cheek. Taking a seat, she said, "I went to talk to him about Prop 22." She shook her head in disgust. "I must have been delusional to think he'd see my point of view."

  "He's an idiot," Martin said. "I don't know how he hid it for so long, but the man is a complete and utter fool."

  She smiled, knowing that her father didn't have the ability to see many shades of gray. "He acted that way today," Ryan admitted. "He wouldn't give an inch."

  He looked at her for a moment, clearly puzzled by her attempt to connect with the priest. "Why waste your time, love?"

  "I wanted to check something out," she said. "And even though I know he's not on my side, I knew he'd tell the truth."

  Martin scowled again and scoffed, "You trust him more than I do. I wouldn't believe him if he told me it was raining during a monsoon."

  "He's not that bad, Da," Ryan said. "And I think he did tell me the truth. Not that it helped," she added. "Now I'm angrier than I was before."

  "What now?" he asked, already getting angry himself.

  "The archdiocese gave several hundred thousand dollars to support Prop 22," she said, getting ready for the fireworks. She actually flinched, but the blast didn't come. Her father was looking at her with a surprisingly calm expression on his face.

  "We've got to leave," he said, and his tone indicated that the topic wasn't open to discussion. "I heard about a mostly Spanish parish on Mission Dolores we might try. They have an English service, but it's with a Vietnamese priest, and no one can understand a word he says. So even if he's spouting the same malarkey that Pender is, we wouldn't know it."

  Ryan looked at him for a moment, trying to determine if he was serious. When she realized he was, she said, "What's the point, Da? If we have to find a Mass where we can't understand the sermon, we might as well quit altogether."

  "Quit the Church?" He looked at her as if she'd grown another head. "We can't do that!"

  She nodded, understanding his position without his having to utter a word. "Can we let it ride for a while?"

  "Why should we?"

  She tried not to look as pathetic as she felt. "I can't take a lot of change right now, Da. Leaving St. Philip's would be a very big deal for me. and I don't wanna upset my apple cart." She smiled. "I've just gotten all of the apples into the damned thing, and it's still hard to keep it level."

  He got up from his side of the table and walked around to stand behind her. Without speaking, he began to rub her shoulders, applying his usual firm, deep pressure. She felt her body relax, and within a few moments, her neck felt rubbery. "I'm okay," she said to reassure him. "I just don't want to ask for trouble. I'm trying to keep things simple."

  He kissed her head. "Simple it is," he agreed. "We won't talk about it again until you bring it up."

  "That's a deal," she said. "I've gotta go soon. Do you think Aunt Maeve has any cookies lying around?"

  "That's why I'm still here," he said, laughing when she nudged his stomach with her head.

  Martin took off his dirty boots at the door. He wrapped his arms around his wife's waist and said, "It's teatime, love. Want me to start the boil?"

  "That'd be lovely," she agreed. "I was just making some scones."

  Ryan snuck her head around her aunt's shoulder. "What kind?"

  Maeve reached behind her and swatted Ryan's butt with a wooden spoon. "If you had called to say you were coming, I would have made your favorite-chocolate potato cake. But since you're always a last-minute-lassie, you'll have to suffer with sultana scones."

  "I love sultana scones," Ryan said, kissing her aunt's cheek. "But I love chocolate potato cake even more. I've got to start coming by for tea more often." She went to the refrigerator and took out some honey, jam and butter. "We never have tea. I'm gonna have to train Jamie better."

  Martin laughed at her. "You know how to ma
ke a proper tea, my little princess. You don't want to have an English girl mucking up the whole process."

  "She's not very English, Da. Her people were in America when our people were still making peat fires in thatched-roof houses."

  He laughed. "That's even worse. American tea is a travesty."

  "I've just about finished the first batch," Maeve said.

  She was cooking the scones on the stove top using a cast-iron pan, Ryan's favorite method. They were crisper and lighter than a baked scone, and her mouth was watering just imagining how good they'd taste.

  Martin was in charge of the tea, and he asked, "Irish Breakfast, assam or green pekoe?"

  "Green tea?" Ryan asked, her brows lifting. "Since when do you drink green tea?"

  "Even though it does taste a little like hay, we're not above branching out a bit," he replied smugly.

  Maeve smiled at her niece. "And Doctor Terry told him green tea's good for him. You know how compliant he is."

  Ryan gave her father a fond look. He was remarkably independent and usually scoffed at every health fad. But if his doctor told him something might be good for him, he adopted the habit at once. "I'll have the green," she said. "I drink espresso in the morning, but I like a nice cuppa green in the afternoon."

  Martin started to make the pot, while Maeve asked, "So tell us what you're working on now, Siobhan. How's your independent study going?"

  "Fine," Ryan said. "I'm making progress, but it's a lot of work."

  "Tell us what the topic is again, sweetheart," Martin asked.

  Ryan made a face. She loved to talk about her work, but she knew that her family didn't have a clue what she was talking about. She tried to give them a summary while not insulting their intelligence. "Well, it's pretty technical, but the bottom line is that I'm trying to use some physics principles to predict trends in the stock market."

  Martin shot her a look. "Physics? Like gravity and things like that?"

  Smiling, Ryan said, "Yeah, that kinda physics. Actually, it's a mix of physics and statistics and engineering and computer science, and of course, math."

  "We know all about these things, don't we, darlin'?" Martin asked his wife, giving her a sweet smile.

  "Oh, my, yes." She set the piping-hot scones on the table, laughing when Ryan brushed her hand aside to get at them. "Don't act like a hungry dog, dear. I can make more."

  "You'd better," Ryan said. "I'm weak with the hunger." She tossed the scone back and forth, letting it cool just enough to be spread with butter. "Well, how about this?" Ryan asked. "I can't really explain how I'm doing it, but here's what I want to do. The stock market has gotten so crazy that people are starting to doubt the analytic methods they've been using for years to predict trends. I mean, really unpredictable things are happening, and it looks like they'll continue. I want to try to find a model that might work even in a crazy market."

  "What sorts of things are happening?" Maeve asked. "We know about the ridiculous amounts of money people are making from the Internet, but the details are over our heads. Give us an example, dear."

  The girl took a bite of her scone, then went through her usual paroxysms of delight, making her aunt laugh. When she could contain herself, she said, "How's this? There's a company you probably know called 3Com."

  "The idiots who put their name on Candlestick Park," Martin said. "They'd change the name of the country if someone offered enough money."

  "Right," Ryan said, trying to avoid that particular discussion. "Well, they make a product called Palm. That's the electronic organizer that Jamie uses."

  "Ah, yes. She's always looking at a tiny little thing, trying to decide if she has the day free."

  "Right. Well, 3Com is spinning Palm off, making it its own company."

  "Why would they do that, dear?" Maeve asked, looking befuddled.

  "That's not the important part," Ryan said. "We can't get bogged down in details." Both Martin and Maeve nodded, waiting for her to continue. "Companies do things like that all of the time. But the funny part is that people expect Palm to be worth a lot more than 3Com was, even though Palm was only a part of the original company."

  Martin stared at her for a minute, then said, "I must not understand. It sounded like you said that a plus b equals x. But a minus b is greater than x."

  "That's exactly right," Ryan said, proud of her father for catching on so quickly.

  "That's ridiculous," he said. "It's not just ridiculous, it's not possible."

  "But it is," Ryan said, her excitement showing. "That's why the market is so volatile. Things that seem implausible are happening every day!"

  Martin took a bite of his scone, paused to kiss his wife for making them, and said, "That's not volatility, that's insanity. And it's not implausible, it's impossible."

  "Well, maybe," Ryan said. "But that's what makes it exciting-you never know what'll happen next!"

  "Siobhan," he said patiently. "The world has been spinning for a long time. In all of that time there's never been a situation where something is worth more once it's been devalued. Just listen to the word, child! The only time you benefit from losing something is if that something is harming the host … like … a cancerous growth. Does losing Palm make 3Com a better company?"

  "Well, no, not really."

  "Does Palm benefit from not having 3Com associated with it? Is there some horrible 3Com scandal that makes Palm guilty by association?"

  "No, no, not at all. That's why this is such a crazy market. That's the point, Da."

  He pursed his lips and shook his head firmly. "It doesn't make sense. And when things don't make sense, you're well advised to stay away from them."

  Ryan scratched her head. "Well, when you say it like that, it does sound kinda silly."

  "The emperor has no clothes," he said. "Just because everyone says he looks nice, doesn't mean he's not naked."

  Deep in thought, Ryan ate some more and sipped at her tea. Her aunt and father knew better than to try to talk to her when she was in one of her trances, so they carried on their own conversation about the garden, waiting for Ryan to return to them.

  The next night, after she'd returned from softball practice, Ryan ran up the stairs, calling out, "Hey, Mia! Your doppelganger's downstairs. Want me to send her up?"

  Mia leapt to her feet and ran over to Ryan. "Do you really think she looks like me?"

  "Yeah," Ryan said. "I wasn't kidding. She doesn't look identical, but you could be sisters."

  Mia threw her arms around Ryan's neck and kissed her. "You're the best!" she yelled, running down the stairs at breakneck speed.

  Ryan stood in the doorway, scratching her chin while she tried to figure out what had just happened. She finally gave up and went back downstairs, deciding that she was just happy that Mia was showing some signs of life again.

  After her guest left, Mia went into the living room and collapsed into a chair, smiling smugly at her roommates.

  "I'd recognize that smile anywhere," Jamie said. "That's the 'I got my way' smile."

  "I did," Mia said, giggling. "It cost me $250, but it was worth it."

  "Can I be let in on this scam?" Ryan asked. "Are you paying someone to steal your identity? 'Cause I think most people are willing to do that for free."

  "No, silly. I was paying her to finish a class for me. One of my teachers is being all honorable, and he won't let me finish from Colorado. So I spent yesterday and today searching the campus for someone who looks like me."

  She looked very satisfied with herself, but Ryan didn't grasp the full meaning of her story. "So? How does that help?"

  "She's gonna go to class for me and tell me if anything unusual comes up. She's more like me than I thought, 'cause she got me to increase my offer from $150 to $250. I shouldn't have let her know how desperate I was!"

  "But how can that work?" Ryan asked. "Won't she have to study and be prepared for class?"

  Mia looked blank. "I never did. Why should she?"

  The brunette smi
led at her friend. "My mistake. I keep thinking like a real student."

  "Don't put those weird values on me, O'Flaherty," Mia said, laughing. "College is just a way to keep us off the streets for four or five years."

  "Right. I'll make a note," Ryan said. "But how will you make sure she follows through? She might screw you."

  "Nope. I have a friend in the class, and I'm gonna call her every week to check up on my employee. I'm paying Hannan by the week, in case you're wondering."

  "Hannan? That's an unusual name. I noticed she had a pretty thick accent. Where's she from?"

  "Lebanon," Mia said. "She's only a freshman, but I think she has potential. She knows how to hustle."

  "It must be nice to know you leave your reputation in such good hands," Ryan said.

  "Sure is. And now I'm doubly glad I never spoke during class. Hannan sounds like she's been taking English lessons for about fifteen minutes!" She got up and fluffed her curls, posing for her friends. "I'm gonna go call my woman and tell her to warm up the bed for me."

  "When are you going?" Ryan asked, looking a little stunned.

  Mia thought for a moment. "Well, I've got a lot to do to get organized, and Jordy's only day off is Sunday … I guess I'll leave on Friday morning so I can get there on Saturday night."

  "That's so soon," Ryan said, her voice higher than normal.

  "It's not soon enough!" Mia said. "I'd leave tonight if I could possibly get ready." She scampered up the stairs, giggling with anticipation.

  Jamie looked at her partner. "Our little girl is growing up, Ma."

  "I liked it when she was little and still believed in Santa Claus," Ryan grumbled.

  Jamie scooted over and snuggled up next to her lover. "Ohh … it won't be so bad to be alone in the house. We'll have a new room to make love in."

  "Hmm …" The corners of Ryan's mouth curled into a reluctant grin. "I guess it won't be all bad. We can finally have this place be clothing optional."

  "That's my tiger," Jamie said, chucking Ryan under the chin. "Now let's get some dinner going." They got up and Jamie said, "You must be starving. I noticed you didn't eat all of the leftovers before softball practice."