Father McIntyre did not heed the wind, did not stop to mull regret or ponder excuses. He stood at the edge of the world where the earth hovered with the sea and the air. He stretched his arms above his head, the wings of his cassock flapping violently, begging his body to soar. And he stepped upon the sky. . . .
PART 4
CHAPTER 27
James slid the hat rim toward his nose, his eyes retreating from the relentless sun. At fourteen, James had spent over three years now living with his aunt and uncle in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia. And in these years, the rain did not fall. Spits. Teasing splats. But not rain. Had the land only given drought, life would have been easier. A man does not try to work a desert; he moves away, says good-bye to a dead land and searches for one of life. But not this land, the land that hovers between green and brown, a place where rain can hit in sheets and then, a mere mile to the east, only the smell of rain falls. This was life in the Wheatbelt—a flirtatious dance between bounty and lack.
Rain. It was easy to blame life’s hardships on the whim of the sky, but James knew better. He had known this for years. The fault lay with him.
James gripped two hands to the left plow handle while his uncle, Shamus O’Reilly, clutched the right. James matched the man head to head in height and so their shoulders came level to the crossbar. His weight did not match that of the burly O’Reilly, though, and so his side tilted forward and lagged. He ground his heels into the rock-laden earth until his legs shook with pushing.
“Come on, boy!” Shamus shouted. “Put ye shoulder into it. Go!”
The old workhorse pulled, jerking her head up with the drag of the dull plow. Slowly, foot by foot, the stubborn tool furrowed lines, grinding up last year’s brittle wheat stalks and chopping up the spinifex that seemed to grow anew each morning.
“All right. ’Tis enuf fur now.” Shamus let go of the plow in exhaustion, bent forward. “Give ’er a rest, James.”
James unhooked the horse, her coat slick with sweat under the leather straps.
“We’ll finish after we eat.” Shamus stretched out his back, the joints of his solid frame and thick arms cracking. “Be a late one. Plowin’ got t’be done tonight even if we work by lantern. Got t’harrow an’ seed an’ roll by end o’ week.” He squinted at the sun and growled, “Late as ’tis!” Then he pointed his chin at James in challenge. “Yeer up fur it, boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
They walked across the deep furrows, a history of lines that had taken up full days and weeks and the skin off their palms to form. The smell of bacon carried from the kitchen stovepipe before the little brown house came into view. Home was no bigger than a shearing shed, its wood so dark from kitchen smoke that it looked charred. The corrugated steel roof was ridged in silver, then valleyed red with rust. The porch stuck out lopsided, supported with planks of wood to keep the roof from collapsing. A water tank flanked the side of the house near the detached kitchen, and behind that the fowl house squawked behind a wire fence.
Tess O’Reilly met them at the door with a hidden smile. “ ’Bout time! Yeer lucky I didn’t feed yeer meal t’the pigs!” Her threat was nothing more than jest as she shepherded them to the table and filled their plates with eggs and bacon. The tea was hot and thick with sugar. It was the beginning of the month. By the end, there would be only one egg per plate, only a small slab of pork, and the tea would be bitter and black. Meals indicated the days of the month and the rent payments clearer than any calendar.
Between mouthfuls of food, Shamus rehashed the details of the morning’s work, sighing and shaking his head with emphasis in case his wife did not grasp the magnitude of his efforts. And Tess would scurry around the kitchen, listening and adding little sounds of expression to show that she did indeed grasp the magnitude of his efforts. And when he inevitably began to curse the blasted Australian land, she would click her tongue soothingly and reach over his shoulder to replenish the eggs, and as she did she would smile and wink at James.
Tess was a small woman and, at first glance, seemed startlingly frail, all the more because her skin was almost translucent against long onyx hair. But her eyes, bright green saucers, eclipsed her body until that was all one saw. And these were the eyes that watched James always, welcomed him into her life with joy stretched in her pupils. Sometimes, when she didn’t think James could see, Tess would touch her lips, then touch her heart.
Shamus frowned and pushed his empty plate across the table. “Back to it.”
“Not now,” Tess protested. “ ’Tis the hottest time of the day. Ye’ll faint within the hour.”
“No choice.” Shamus motioned for James to follow. “Don’t rush with supper, Tess.”
Tess wagged a finger at her husband. “Ye make sure the boy rests, Shamus.”
Shamus’s mood soured with the inching degrees of mercury so that by the time they reached the plow and re-hooked the horse, he was dark with mute cursing. They toiled silently over the last, infinite stretch of field. The heat brought weariness to their work, sapping their strength doubly while productivity halved. Shamus’s lips twitched with growing anger and internal diatribe. James shut his mind to everything but work, pushed with all his body, the sweat spilling over his eyes and stinging them with salt.
“Push it!” Shamus shouted to the plow, to James, to the horse, to the endless ground.
A sharp metal clang stopped the plow cold, sending James to his knees.
“Fur the love a Jasus!” Shamus bent his head to the plow turn, reached in with both hands. “Bloody hell!” He wrenched himself up and tore off his hat, beat it against the red plow, the color of his face.
“Axle cracked! Clean through!” he shouted, and stormed away, his back bent, hands tight at his waist, before stomping back and giving the plow a hard kick with his foot, the thud so dull it almost mocked him. The horse shuffled nervously.
“Would it kill ye to do one bloody thing right!” Shamus suddenly turned on James.
“I told ye to stop grindin’ the feckin’ wheel into rocks!” Shamus brushed past him, mumbling, “Wouldn’t be in this feckin’ country if it weren’t fur ye.”
James did not follow Shamus to the house, stood quietly for a minute with the weight of lead on his chest. He moved to the horse, scratched the backs of her ears before peeking down through the plow spokes. The axle leaned on the ground, broken and rusted through. He turned back to the horse and stroked the velvet of her nose. She breathed heavily, too old for this kind of work. James unclasped the harness, letting the plow fall forward into the dirt, and walked her back to the house. He pumped fresh water into the trough, sat and watched her drink, the sun a rippling orange reflection in the water.
And it was here in the silence near the flimsy house, beyond the work of the field, his muscles numb with pain, that the void of a missing friend filled the corners of the endless sky and reminded him that this was the life he had chosen.
CHAPTER 28
On this day, Leonora’s eleventh birthday, the rain of Pittsburgh did not end in rainbows. It blackened with night, stained the bark of the great oaks, dried in gray streaks down the slate roofs like sooty tears and pivoted from steady pours to ashen sniffles.
Leonora pulled the covers up to her neck, watched the bloated splatter against her bedroom window, dancing finger taps upon slick glass. Eleven—a number, an age—a birthday to celebrate—a fake date—another stomachache. The guests had departed, the chatter and footsteps silent.
A light rap knocked against the door, but she didn’t answer. “Are you awake?” her uncle asked through an open crack.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He closed the door behind him and lingered at the knob. “I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye.”
Owen Fairfield’s figure moved through the room. He sat at the foot of the bed. He reached for the lamp and turned the brass key, lighting a square above the covers. His white beard was short and clean and perfectly lined at the jawbone and mouth. He looked
quickly at the gold pocket watch in the vest of his gray twill suit, his traveling attire. White suits never lasted more than a few hours in the coal-laden air without him having to change.
He tried to lighten the mood, tried to get her to look at his face. “You had such a busy day, I thought you’d be asleep.”
She smiled weakly. He smelled of pipe tobacco, slightly sweet.
“Eleven!” Owen Fairfield shook his head. “Eleven years old, I can hardly believe it. Seems like just yesterday you were a little girl and now you’re halfway grown.” He pointed a finger at her, his eyes crinkling with affection. “You’re making an old man out of me, darling.”
Her uncle peered around the room, looked up at the coffered ceiling. “You didn’t open any of your presents.”
The shame of what she had done brightened her cheeks and she turned away.
“It wasn’t your fault, Leonora.” He pinched her chin. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about.” He looked down at his hands then, twisted his wedding band around his finger. “She’s too hard on you. Always has been.”
He stayed quiet for a moment before pulling out the watch again, then snapped it shut and tucked it back. “Car’s waiting for me,” he said without rising. “I’ll be gone six months at least. China and Japan.” He frowned. “Traveling’s not what it used to be; things are tightening. Hard to explain. Like the whole world’s being pulled in different directions like elastic. Used to be a lot simpler, friendlier. World’s changing, darling, and I’m not sure it’s for the better.” Worry lines changed to smiles as the weight of the words struck him. “And here you are, eleven! Changing right in front of my eyes.” He pointed another finger at her. “No more growing while I’m gone, you hear me?”
She nodded.
“I’ll bring you back a silk kimono, one that picks up the gold in your hair and eyes.” He winked. “Maybe a jade tree. You and I got a thing for the rocks, don’t we?”
Her uncle leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, looked like he wanted to say more but then left the room—an incomplete sentence. A few minutes later, the beams of the Rolls-Royce splashed against the window before turning down the pine-lined drive.
Leonora wrapped her arms around her belly. The room widened in emptiness, the canopy bed loomed and the gaping mouth of the marble fireplace wheezed a cold draft. The house was icier without him, like a scarf removed from an already-chilled neck. Not that he was attentive or playful, but instead a distraction between her and Eleanor. With Owen gone, her aunt’s anxiety and missing of her husband always turned to hard focus, singular and defined, to Leonora. Nothing she could do was right and so she spent her days hoping to evaporate with the morning dew.
In the darkness of the large room, Leonora’s mind was too busy, the day too full with unpleasant moments that kept replaying, drawing in scenes from the past like moths to a flame. So, with bare feet, she climbed out of bed and went out to the hall, felt the way down the thick walnut banister.
The fireboxes were out and the wood floors chilled as Leonora tiptoed past the closed doors of the kitchen and shrank into a corner, tucking her nightgown around her ankles. The room was cold, but the noise behind the walls was a heat that warmed from the inside out. She opened her ears to the lone area of activity in the house. The sounds of clean dishes clinking mixed with laughing voices over scrubbing pots and the pounding of rolling pins.
The kitchen nourished with more than food. Words stirred within the walls; emotions flowed freely. Real words. Real feelings. Not the contrived small talk and lies that filled her day or the relentless tutoring of facts, history and numbers drummed into the creases of her brain. So many words spoken in a day—words that must be remembered; words that had to be recited, but never words that meant anything.
A door slammed on the servant side and a woman moaned. “You’re still here?” Bertha’s voice bellowed. “Thought you turned in for the night.”
“Huh! To be so lucky.” Leonora recognized the voice of Mindy, the table maid. “Had to polish the silver twice!” the woman grunted. “Once before the party and again after. Even the pieces nobody used!”
“Well, sit for a spell and have some tea before you go!” ordered Bertha. A stool screeched across the floor. “Mrs. Fairfield asleep?”
“Far as I know. Course she’ll be up for her midnight feeding soon, sucking the blood out of kittens and babies.” The cooks laughed. “Cake looked out of this world, Bertha. Spice cake?”
“Carrot. There’s a whole one left. Take a piece.”
“You heard what happened?” Mindy snickered.
“Everyone heard what happened. Was it so bad?”
“Worse. The girl threw up all over herself just as she was blowing out the candles! Should have seen Mrs. Fairfield’s face—her eyes bulging and her face red as a tomato!” The woman snorted. “Leonora be lucky if she lives to see twelve.”
Heat grew sharp to Leonora’s cheeks, burned her ears. She felt sick just thinking about it.
“Poor girl,” Bertha tsked. “Got a room full of people she don’t even know telling her how pretty she is, asking her questions. More grown-ups than children. See all those presents with the blue wrapping paper? Crystal and silver! What’s a child going to do with that stuff?”
“Not for her at all, you know that,” answered another voice. “Kissing asses. Every guest had lips puckered for a taste of the sweet Fairfield behind—tasted better on their lips than your carrot cake, Bertha.” There were throaty chuckles before she continued, “Can’t blame the girl for barfing. Can’t be easy knowing you ain’t got no friends.”
“You’ll hear no pity from me!” Mindy snapped. “Mark my words, Mrs. Fairfield will have one of us fired over this. I’m telling you, that girl is like a curse. Her maids and tutors don’t last more than a year. Soon as she warms up to them, they’re gone. Get too close to that one and you get burned.”
“Poor thing’s just lonely. Child wouldn’t hurt a flea,” said Bertha, her voice mellowing like her arms were crossed against her stomach. “I pity her. They got her scheduled with lessons from morning to night. She’s not allowed to have any friends or playmates. And look who she’s got to live with? An uncle who drops a present at her feet and taps her on the head as he leaves and an aunt who’d freeze the devil’s tail with a look.”
“So terrible is it?” Mindy scoffed. “Imagine never picking up a dirty dish or having to cook a piece of toast.”
“No shame in hard work and you know it. Would you want her life?” The maid fell silent.
“Of course not.” Bertha’s tone deepened. “It’s no life for a child. I wouldn’t wish her life on a dog.”
The teacup moved to the counter and Mindy’s feet tapped against the tile as she got off the stool. “Well, the girl might seem sweet and innocent now, but Leonora’ll grow up mean as Mrs. Fairfield. You’ll see.”
Leonora cowered into the wall, replayed the words over and over, half-conscious of the waning sounds of the kitchen. The lights switched off, snapped away the beam of white near her feet. The servant door closed and the key rattled as it locked. It would be the last time she would hear the voice of Bertha, the cook who would sneak her extra desserts and squeeze her with fat, warm arms, the last time she would hear this kind woman defending her. For her aunt had already decided to fire Bertha, blaming Leonora’s sickness on the cake, too rich for a child’s stomach. Leonora remembered the maid’s prediction: Get too close to that one and you get burned. The guilt and shame rose swift and hot.
What little warmth left and the cold from the empty kitchen seeped into her bones, shaking her limbs. She rose unsteadily and inched blindly back through the hall and up the staircase. As she passed her aunt’s room, she slowed her pace and held her breath, the familiar fear rising. But another sound crept upon her and she stopped, listened. Hiccups of sobbing, low and prolonged, seeped from behind the closed door.
Leonora could not move, the feeling akin to seeing a rose blooming in the dead
of winter, the oddity of it stunning and strange—the reality of a fleeting moment of grace and truth even stranger. Without thinking, Leonora touched her fingertips to the door, and it swung inward. Eleanor sat hunched before the fireplace, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking. The moment was so soft, the woman’s pain so real, that Leonora’s eyes welled, her heart breaking at another’s suffering.
Leonora inched silently to her side, leaned in and wrapped her arms gently around her aunt’s bent neck. In Leonora’s arms, in a moment of warmth and emotion, the neck fell limp upon her shoulder and a weak cry left the woman’s throat. Leonora had never touched Eleanor, never felt an embrace or a kiss from the woman, and she melted into the cold skin, lost herself in a single moment of closeness that her whole soul craved. But it was only a moment. One moment to be forever lost, for suddenly the woman’s neck and head jerked up as if awakened by a thunderclap. The eyes glowed black, rimmed red with tears. “How dare you come in here.” Eleanor’s voice cracked and her chin shivered. Leonora stepped back.
“How dare you sneak up on me!” Eleanor screamed. Leonora retreated two steps more, but Eleanor grabbed her wrist and pulled her close. “If you ever tell anyone about this,” Eleanor hissed, “I’ll leave you out in the dust! Do you understand me?”
Leonora tried to pull back, began to cry, her voice closed with the habitual panic.
“Do you understand?” Eleanor screamed. “I will leave you!”
I will leave you. I will leave you. I will leave you.
Leonora’s mind went blank and she nodded furiously, kept nodding furiously even as she fled the room and ran through the hall.
I will leave you. I will leave you. I will leave you.
These were the threats, Eleanor’s promises, the lullaby that sang in Leonora’s ears since the Fairfields adopted her in case she dared slip about her past, made any mistake. And no one ever defended or protected her from the promise, not even her uncle. Owen upon hearing the woman’s threats would always draw inward, his face sallow and gray as if the words were spoken to him. And he would leave, never defend, never say all would be all right, and for this the pain was worse. So Leonora never misspoke, stayed silent and shared her secrets only with the birds and trees and barn cats and hunting dogs who would lick away her frowns.
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