CHAPTER 12
“The tarps are all we have to protect the dormitories.” Father McIntyre pointed to the wounded building. “It’s a temporary fix. Certainly won’t get us through another winter.” Bishop Ridley nodded and continued walking, leading the tour more than following it, taking the steep slope toward the rows of dwarf fruit trees.
“The orchard will come back, but it will take time. Some of the trees were pulled out from the roots.” Father McIntyre took his elbow. “Watch your step, Bishop,” he said as they stepped over an open hole. “The cherries did much better—”
The Bishop interrupted, “How many children reside here?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“And staff?”
“Three nuns and a cook.”
The Bishop studied him. “And you.”
“And me, yes.”
The Bishop walked with fingers joined loosely behind his back. Father McIntyre slowed his gait to match, though he was impatient to show the Bishop all that needed to be done. The fence posts to the farm peeked up from the valley and Father McIntyre wasted no time. “In the past, shearing brought in—”
“How many children . . . I’m sorry, Father, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, please continue.”
Bishop Ridley scanned the sky. “How many children have been adopted?”
He tried to dodge the question. “How many? I guess that depends. The orphanage has been here since before I started.”
“How many since you started, then?” the Bishop asked.
Father McIntyre wiped a sweaty palm against his hip. “None.”
The Bishop’s jaw dropped. “Not a one? In all this time?”
“This is not a wealthy state, Your Grace. Times are hard. We aren’t exactly easy to get to.” He meant it to sound light but knew right away his error.
“You make a good point.” The Bishop raised his eyebrows, his mind busy. “This place is remote for an orphanage. Perhaps it would be better utilized as a seminary. Young priests need the solitude. Children need the opposite.”
Father McIntyre swam through waves of nerves and stopped. “May I speak frankly?” The Bishop nodded, curious.
“This is more than an orphanage. For these children, it is a sanctuary, a life. For most of them, this is their only chance.” Father McIntyre stared deep into the man’s expressionless features. “They receive vocation training ensuring they will not turn wayward as the unskilled do. Each child will leave this place with the ability to support himself and become a decent working adult and, no doubt, a strong advocate of the church.” He did not speak with emotion but with profession and he held the Bishop’s eyes so they could not look away.
“We do not ask for charity but for an investment,” he continued. “These children work and study hard. We sustain ourselves from the farm and orchard and only ask enough to get work started again. The storm has brought us a challenging time.”
“You wrote for money before the storm ever came, Father McIntyre.” The Bishop flared his nostrils skeptically. “Several times, I believe.”
“That’s true. But I’ve only asked to benefit the children. To give them every opportunity.”
“You’re a dedicated man,” said the Bishop blandly. The priest was not sure if it was a compliment.
The men did not continue to the farm, for the need was gone. Nothing he could show the Bishop would outweigh his words. Around the turn, they sought the bench under the shade of a waning sun and Father McIntyre did not feel like filling in the spaces any longer. The sun weighed on his eyelids and a twinge of a headache started at the temples. He was bored with the Bishop, bored with his disinterest, and he looked forward to the morning, when he would leave.
A group of boys played ball in the field, their activity a welcome distraction. Father McIntyre relaxed and smiled at the way the children fought for the ball, their feet quick and carefree; he smiled at the laughing faces, the joy children brought into the world, his world. He looked at the Bishop’s profile to see if he smiled, too. But the Bishop didn’t, and for the first time Father McIntyre saw plainly the thoughts in the man’s unmoving features, the wheels that ground past the present and sped toward the future when children did not run in these fields or take shelter in this place. To Bishop Ridley, the orphanage was a minor distraction—a lost cause.
Father McIntyre entered his office with a quick push of the door, forgetting it was occupied. Deacon Johnson jumped with the noise, his hand on his chest. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!” He chuckled at his own surprise. “I was just finishing up the accounts. Forgot where I was for a moment. Numbers will do that to you.”
Father McIntyre slouched into the chair, his face heavy and dull. “I trust you found everything in order?”
“Yes. Your records are very thorough.” The Deacon frowned. “What’s wrong, Colin?”
Father McIntyre intertwined his fingers, picked at his thumbnail. “Bishop Ridley never planned to give us any money, did he?”
The man pinched his lip. A slight blush entered his cheeks. “No.”
“Then why come?” the Father almost shouted. “Why bother with the journey, with the pleasantries, when he could have ignored my letters as he has in the past? Why have you look over the books when he has no plans to add to them?”
“The Bishop plans to close half the parishes,” he answered softly, his eyes unblinking. “He came to decide which ones should go.”
The words kicked Father McIntyre square under the ribs. He leaned his back against the chair and looked at the ceiling, digesting the words and trying to think through the pain in his abdomen. He dug his elbows into his legs, rubbed his eyebrows with his fingers. “What can I do?”
The Deacon placed his glasses on his nose and opened the ledger. “The numbers are not good. But you know this. You were running at a loss before the storm, and now . . .” He looked at the Father with gravity. “If it doesn’t turn around, the Bishop will close the orphanage.”
Father McIntyre scoffed, “Turn it around, he says!” Hopelessness flooded his chest and he twisted his mouth. “Is there nothing that can be done?”
The Deacon’s pupils rose above his glasses and he held up a finger for patience, then flipped through the lined pages of the ledger. “There’s a number here I wanted to ask you about.” He turned the ledger toward the Father and pointed. “Under the word ‘Leonora.’ ”
“That’s not our money.” He pushed the ledger away. “Belongs to a child here.”
Deacon Johnson cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a girl here. Her name is Leonora. When she came, there was money set aside for her future; it belongs to her.”
“She’s a ward of the church,” the Deacon corrected. “The money belongs to us.”
“Someone cared enough for this girl to set aside money.” His jaw set. “I won’t touch it.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“I do have a choice,” Father McIntyre retorted, then checked his tone. “You don’t understand. This girl is . . . special.”
“How so?”
“She doesn’t speak.”
The Deacon grew stern. “Colin, this is not a place for children like that and you know it. There are state hospitals for that sort of thing. She should have never been placed here.”
“She’s not retarded, for Pete’s sake! The poor child has been through things we can’t imagine, abandoned, shuffled from one place to another. It’s no wonder she doesn’t speak. No one has probably ever listened to her.” He pinched his knee. “A child like that has no future. She needs that money to survive. I won’t allow it to be touched.”
The Deacon studied him and the Father’s insides bubbled. “Don’t you dare look at me like that, Robert. Don’t you analyze me!”
“You can’t save the world.”
Father McIntyre turned his head away, but the past was seeping toward them.
“You put too much pressure on yourself,
Colin. It’s not healthy.”
“Stop it!” Father McIntyre ordered.
“I know you.” Deacon Johnson leaned forward, his eyes watery, helpless. “You lose yourself in salvation. I still have nightmares about what I saw, what you did to yourself.”
“Stop it!” Father McIntyre clamped his eyes and covered his ears with his hands, pressed until he heard his pulse, but it was too late; something red and sick was entering and weaving its way through the floorboards and inching through the roof eaves. He glanced at the thin white scars across his wrists. He tore his hands away and folded them against his stomach.
“Do you forget? It was me.” The Deacon pounded his chest with an open hand. “It was me who found you!”
“Damn it!” Father McIntyre hammered the desk with his fist. “How dare you bring this here! How dare you soil this place, my place, with those . . . with that hell.” He looked around wildly. “This is my place. My place, do you hear? You have no right to bring that back.” He paced the floor, caged, blood pumping too hard and quick. He turned back to the Deacon and held out his wrists, his white hands reaching out from the black sleeves, Christ-like. “I spill no blood, do you see? I have skin long healed.” He suddenly spoke calmly. “You have no right to cut them open again.”
Father McIntyre returned to his seat, his pupils round and black. “I’m not the same man you knew. That was a different life for me.”
“Yes, I see that!” the Deacon cried. “I saw that the moment I stepped out of the car. But when I saw your face here, the stress, the hopelessness . . . it took me back. Just because we age doesn’t mean old demons can’t strike.”
“My demons have long been dealt with, Robert. I’m among angels here.”
“Then let me help you keep it that way,” he urged. “There is an answer here, at least a temporary one. You need to use that girl’s money.”
Father McIntyre’s neck flopped against his collar.
“Listen to me.” The Deacon danced in his seat. “If the orphanage closes, where will she go? She’ll be sent to a hospital or put in a work home or worse. You said yourself she has no future. Here the child is safe. Here she will be fed, nurtured, schooled as will the other children. An individual’s need must be sacrificed for the betterment of the whole. You see? You have no other choice.
“Let me help you, Colin. If you’re no longer a liability to the church, I can sway the Bishop to let things stand. But you must understand this money is only a bandage. This place is stagnant; there are no children leaving. You need to find adopters, donors, it’s the only way.”
Father McIntyre lowered his eyes and nodded, the fight gone.
Bishop Ridley and Deacon Johnson left at first light. The smell of salt air, no longer tainted by the car’s trail of exhaust, entered Father McIntyre’s veins, freshened the blood.
Father McIntyre stepped upon the path to the sea, sought shade below the pepper tree and closed his eyes. He pressed his palms against the blue-black dots of hair beneath the surface of his chin and cheeks, felt their points under his fingertips. When he opened his eyes, James was there, standing with his strange seriousness and silent dignity. The priest smiled at the boy, patted the ground. “Sit. Sit.”
James folded his legs, bent his spine over the triangle of limbs.
“Haven’t seen you much lately. Everything all right?” he asked. James nodded.
Father McIntyre focused on James’s face, the frowning young lines. The Bible stuck out from the boy’s shirt. He tapped James on the knee. “So, tell me what’s got you reading the Good Book so intently these days.”
James lowered his chin, shadowing the grass with the oval of his head. “I don’t know.”
“Then read me a passage that interests you. Surely, you’ve found some favorites.”
The boy did not move; his chest did not rise or fall.
Father McIntyre laughed, plucked the book from the boy’s waistband. “Fine. I’ll choose one.” He pulled out his glasses, opened the book to the middle. At first, his eyes blindly stared at the page, confused by the slanted, elegant handwriting. He flipped several more pages with his index finger, saw the dates listed in the corners. He closed the book, turned his face away. “How long have you had it?” he asked, his voice dim.
The boy’s silence was long and pained. “Since the storm.”
“Have you read it?”
“No,” James answered. “Well, some.”
“You shouldn’t have kept it.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And I shouldn’t have kept it from you.”
James’s mouth fell. Father McIntyre put the book in the boy’s hands. “I was wrong to keep it from you.” He gazed at the child. “I never read it, James. I hope you believe me. This was never meant for anyone’s eyes but yours.” The two sat among the rustle of sparse leaves for several minutes.
“Do you think . . .” James ventured, then stopped, bit his bottom lip.
“What is it, son?”
“Do you think I have relatives . . . in Ireland?”
He thought of that for a moment. “Hmmm. It’s possible.”
“My father was from there. Maybe I have uncles?” His voice pitched higher. “Maybe they would bring me to live with them?”
Father McIntyre pursed his lips and tapped his foot. “There’s no way to know that, son.”
“You could write a letter.” The boy’s expression changed and there was hope. “He was from Limerick. It says so in the diary. You could write the town or the church.”
Father McIntyre ground his heel into the dirt and he was suddenly angry and he was too tired in mind to know that it was wrong to be angry. “Aren’t you happy here?” It was more accusation than question. “Haven’t I cared for you as a real father would? Haven’t I taught you and loved you as a real father would?”
James’s face fell and his chin pointed to his chest.
A pit filled the Father’s stomach. “I’m sorry, James.” He covered his eyes with his hands and rubbed away the anger. “I’m so sorry. I had no right to say such a thing.” He squeezed his temples. “I’m not well today. The Bishop’s visit . . . the stress of . . . I took it out on you. I’m sorry.” He pulled at the boy’s arm. “Do you forgive me?”
“Yes, Father.” But the great hurt still clung to his voice and face.
“I’ll write the letter, James. Just as you asked. I’ll do it today. I promise.”
James looked up and hope entered again, cautiously this time. Father McIntyre took the boy’s face in his hands and cradled it. “I’ll write the letter, James. But please don’t get your hopes up. Ireland’s a big place and O’Connell is a common name. I’ll write the letter. But please, my son, don’t dream too much.”
James nodded, but the dream had already taken root.
CHAPTER 13
They met at the cliffs every day—Leonora with bread and James with beetles and worms. They padded the nest with new, green leaves and refilled water in hollowed sticks. At times the bird beat her dead wing for flight and at others sat upon tucked legs while the meal was fed to her.
James plopped next to a scraggly yellow-blossomed wattle and leaned on his elbows, his knees bent at the cliff edge and his bare toes pointing down toward the sea. Leonora’s legs crossed at the ankles as she swung them gently against the sandstone wall.
The two small bodies sat in quiet company under a sky rich and thick with periwinkle, mimicked by the ocean in both expanse and depth. Hundreds of feet below their toes, unfiltered rays played across the sea as light dances over diamonds, the ocean moving lazily, peacefully along its natural current, meeting the cliffs with laps that hardly splashed. Pelicans and seagulls bobbed effortlessly along the ebbs and flows, their bellies fat and tired from feeding in the clear water. And the children settled into the environment just like the birds and lizards and insects, as if they had always been there.
From the corner of his eye, James caught a glimpse of Leonora’s long hair, the way each
strand held the sun. She turned to him and smiled and the warmth spread across his skin until he had to turn away.
“Ireland’s got cliffs like these,” James announced too loudly. “Only white. White as powder. They’re made of chalk. Did you know that? No different than the stuff they use on the blackboard. Father McIntyre’s got a whole book about the place.”
Leonora leaned on one hand planted in the grass, listened with full eyes to every word.
“They call Ireland the Emerald Isle ’cause of all the green,” he continued. “The grass grows greener and brighter than anywhere else on earth. The houses there are white like the cliffs.” He looked far off over the sea. “Must be so beautiful with all that green and white. Must look like a field of mushrooms.” They settled their thoughts on the image.
“Ireland’s got loads of sheep, too. Not brown ones like here but soft white ones. They got piles of potatoes . . . got so many in the ground you can’t hardly put a spade down without digging one up. You’ve never seen potatoes like Irish potatoes, Leo. They’re near bigger than my foot!” He stuck out his foot dramatically and her irises shone.
“Someday I’m gonna live there. Gonna build myself a little white house right atop those white chalk cliffs and I’m going to fill that green grass with sheep. Gonna fill it with so many sheep that when I look out my window it looks like clouds floating on a green sky. I’ll shear them myself, too. I’ve been practicing. Probably have a patch of potatoes, too. Got to. Might even be the law that you gotta grow potatoes.” He squinted and his eyes flickered with the thoughts forming in his mind. Leonora followed suit, trying to see what he saw.
“Every night I’ll have stew so thick with meat and potatoes it’ll be hard to get the spoon in. In the corner of the kitchen I’ll set a butter churn. I’ll churn it myself, I will. I’ll slab that butter an inch thick on my bread and eat it at every meal.” He looked over at Leonora and lowered his eyes in embarrassment at all his talking, but she only smiled, and when she smiled she brought his out of its dormancy and it didn’t feel so odd anymore.
Daughter of Australia Page 6