by Lee Magner
She grinned.
“I’m just making conversation,” she said, defending herself. “Most people ask you about your work and your marital status. Haven’t you noticed? Or are conversations really that different up in chilly, windy old Chicago?”
“No. They run along those, lines.”
“Don’t you want to ask me any questions?” she inquired innocently.
“Not particularly.” He stared straight ahead. Surely they’d reach Luther’s driveway any minute now.
“Well, that’s all right,” Clare said easily. “I’ll tell you what you’re no doubt dying to hear.”
He rolled his eyes, but kept his mouth firmly shut.
“I graduated from college with a degree in American history, managed to get a summer grant to pay my way to Europe to work on a paper on European and American social history of the colonial period…”
Case grinned. “Sounds fascinating.”
Clare would have kicked his ankle, but her foot was needed on the accelerator.
“Actually, it was. And is. I was going to try to work on a master’s degree, but a very interesting job opening came up in Crawfordsville a few years ago and I decided to take it.”
“The words very interesting job and Crawfordsville just don’t seem to go together in the same sentence,” he teased.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” she argued in a friendly way. “I had always been interested in the history of this town, you know—how people came here, what they did to support themselves and their families at different periods of time. When the town council approved the position of town historian, well, it seemed like my guardian angel had been working overtime.”
“You’re the town historian?” he asked, grinning more broadly.
“Yep. So watch what you say, Case, or it may end up in a future history book,” she warned him with a good-natured laugh.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
They turned onto Luther’s driveway and pulled up a short time later in front of Luther’s front door.
This time, the dog was tied up.
“Take care of yourself,” Clare told Case as he got out of the car. “Give my regards to Luther… and to your father.”
Chapter 6
“Clare said hello.”
Seamus’s eyes wrinkled into the suggestion of a smile.
Case stood in the morning sunlight filtering into Luther’s living room and wondered how he had come to this—forwarding a hello from someone else as a means of beginning a conversation with his own father.
“Clare,” Seamus muttered, as if trying to recollect her clearly. “Clare… she’d be the girl who used to tag along behind you like the plague?”
“I’ll be sure and tell her you described her that way,” Case said wryly.
Seamus made a short, mirthful sound somewhere between a chuckle and a grunt.
“Some women have no sense of humor whatsoever,” Seamus said, his voice graveled from years of whiskey. “But I remember that girl, Clare, and she always could take a good kidding. I b’lieve you used to kid her some?”
“I’m surprised you remember.” Case slid his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and watched his father, wondering just how poorly he was feeling today. He looked gaunt and worn-out.
“Was she the one who brought you back last night, then?” Seamus asked gruffly.
“Yeah. She was the one.”
Seamus was looking Case over. Up and down. Then he slowly walked down the last two stair steps and joined Case in the living room.
“You’d be surprised what your old da remembers.”
Case frowned slightly. There was a peculiar lilt in the way Seamus had made that last comment, as if there were a secret within it. The words were underlined with a warning tone, telling Case that he should beware of Seamus’s memories. They were not all benign.
The smell of bacon and eggs wafted in from the large country kitchen adjoining the living room.
“Is Luther doin’ the cooking?” Seamus asked, sniffing the air appreciatively.
“Yes. He said he’d fix us breakfast and he’d take no help with it. Said he cooked every day and there was no reason this one was different from any other.”
Seamus chuckled and nodded his head.
“Sounds like Luther.”
“He can be stubborn.”
“Oh, that he can be,” Seamus agreed.
“He’s also an incurable optimist.”
Seamus sat down heavily in a comfortable old chair. From beneath his graying brows, he cast a sharp glance toward his son.
“Are you trying to tell me something, my boy?” Seamus asked.
“I guess I am. Maybe I should speak plainly.”
“Tis usually the best way,” Seamus agreed with a philosophical shrug of his frail shoulders.
“Luther wanted us to have some time to talk before he joined us. That’s the other reason he went in the kitchen and told me to wait out here.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “He’s hoping that you and I can use this private moment to greet each other. As father and son.”
Seamus closed his eyes and leaned against the chair.
“You mean, for the son to greet his dying father who’s been let out of prison?” Seamus opened his eyes and looked questioningly at Case.
“All right. Yes. For me to see you alone and give you some filial love and support now that you’re out of the pen and standing at death’s ugly door.”
Seamus smiled bitterly.
“Do you hate me, then, Case? Surely sounds as if there’s hate in your heart. Those are hard words you’ve used, and with no softening, no words of condolence for the death sentence, no words of congratulations for the early release.”
Case felt a twinge of regret for his blunt speaking, but he immediately hardened his heart against it. He wouldn’t let his father slide into his feelings, into his hopes and dreams, into his sufferings. No, the old bastard could stay out in the cold. After what he’d done, he surely had no right to expect to be returned to the warm bosom of a loving family. Even if the family was one, solitary person.
“I don’t know what I feel for you anymore,” Case admitted. “Once, years ago, I loved you like every son loves his father. But then…”
“Then ye discovered that I had feet o’ clay and a belly pickled in spirits and a temper that drove decent folks away in distress.”
“Yes.”
“And did that kill your love?”
“If it had, it would have been easier,” Case said stiffly.
Seamus blinked and looked at Case more closely, but his vision was not good, and he couldn’t make out the details of his son’s face as he sorely longed to. So he motioned to Case.
“Come here, my boy. Let me see you. The light’s poor in here and you’re in the shadows over there, to make it all worse.”
Case reluctantly crossed the distance between them and stood close to his father.
Seamus let his foggy old gaze drift over his son. Hungrily, he searched for every detail of color and texture in the man that was his own flesh and blood, his posterity, his world.
“You’ve grown into a fine, strapping man,” Seamus murmured. “Logan’s done well by you, I see. Next time you see him, thank him forme, will you?”
Case hadn’t expected a tender compliment from his usually crusty father. It took him a moment to take in the direction of Seamus’s thoughts and to form a reply.
“It would sound better coming from you, Da,” Case suggested.
“Maybe ‘twould. But I don’t believe that I will be seeing Logan again. And if I don’t, I’d like my thanks to be made known to him. It has been all I hoped for and more, the way you’ve turned out.”
Seamus hesitated. He seemed a little torn, as if he was sharing more than he’d intended, and wasn’t certain whether to go on or to close off this unusual conversation he was having with Case.
Deciding there was no longer any advantage to keeping his thoughts and feelings b
uried, he continued in the same vein. With slow determination, he took his son’s hand and grasped it firmly between his own.
“And I thank you for doing so well with the opportunities that Logan has provided for you. I know your mother…” Seamus grew somber. “I know that she would be proud of you, too.”
Case was almost speechless. He couldn’t remember his father opening up to him like this in years, maybe ever. And now, to mention his dead mother—Case was flabbergasted. When she’d deserted them, Seamus had forbidden Case to mention her name in his presence. He’d been that furious with her abandonment of them.
“So have you forgiven her, Da?” Case asked his father, holding his breath. Even now, he wasn’t sure whether discussing his mother might destroy this fragile link of conversation that his father and he had cautiously forged.
“I suppose I have. But I’ve also forgiven myself,” Seamus said thoughtfully. “She had her reasons for leaving us. And the ones she gave me those many years ago weren’t the only ones. Weren’t even the real ones.”
“What?” Case felt his father’s hands shake. “You’re skin and bones, Da,” Case whispered. His father’s grip, which he’d remembered from his childhood as strong as steel, was now as delicate as a bird’s. The bones and the skin, stretched across it like fine parchment, would be crushed in the vise of a strong handshake, Case thought.
Seamus shrugged and smiled in peaceful acceptance.
“Dust unto dust,” he quoted with a shrug.
“What did you mean when you said that her reasons for leaving weren’t the only ones? Weren’t the real ones?” Case demanded.
“Logan called me…”
Case’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. What did Logan have to do with this?
“He called me and spoke to me at the prison the day before I left. Said he had a letter that your mother had left for me, should I be near death and she was no longer here to speak for herself.”
“Logan never said anything to me about it,” Case said distrustfully.
“The envelope stated that it was private, and the letter and its contents were only to be conveyed to me. Logan inherited the letter as part of her estate, but he had no reason to send it to me until now. He was only doing his duty, Case. Don’t hold it against the man.”
Case made no reply. But he didn’t like the fact that Logan had kept something so important from him.
“What does the letter say?” Case asked.
“I’ll give it to you. Later. You can read it for yourself. But I’ll tell you this, it has lifted the sword of hatred from my heart. I think I won’t mind meetin’ the woman again in the next life, after what she said. She left us to save us, Case,” Seamus said, his whiskey-roughened voice trembling with emotion and his eyes half brimming with tears of love and regret.
“Ay, she did indeed purely hate my pigheadedness… how I wouldna let her try to get her family to accept me, after we were husband and wife. I was an arrogant man. A very stiff-necked, prideful man. And when they wouldn’t take me as a son, wanted to get the marriage annulled, especially with you on the way, well, I never forgave her parents for that. No. If I wasn’t good enough for ‘em, to hell with ‘em, I told her.”
“But she ran away with you. I thought she didn’t really feel that close to them, either.”
“Well, she was young and rebellious, a girl full of vim and vigor living in a mausoleum. Her parents kept her on a very short leash, and she wanted to defy them. When she and her rich girlfriends picked me up in a bar, it was the ultimate act of defiance.”
Case laughed and shook his head.
“She and I were like fire and tinder together,” Seamus said, his voice growing dark and husky with deep emotion. “I’d never met a girl like her before. And she’d never met a man like me. I could knock the teeth out of any of her uptown boyfriends. Hell, I could do it blindfolded and with one arm behind me back. They were… polite.”
Case smiled at the description, but he thought it wasn’t far from the truth. He’d seen some of those young men’s pictures in the family albums back in Chicago. They looked pampered. Well fed. Neatly groomed. They might have been shrewd in academic circles, or well connected in moneyed society. They were often politically influential, and in adulthood became the hidden movers and shakers of banks and boardrooms from coast to coast. But in a bar fight, Seamus Malloy was the man to bet on. Where living by his wits were concerned, Seamus had no equal.
“So it was sex that got you together?” Case said casually.
Seamus blushed and gave Case a stern look.
“Some things are better not mentioned between father and son,” Seamus said archly. He looked his son over, though, and offered one small piece of insight as fatherly advice.
“The fire that the good Lord put between man and woman is a holy thing. And in the blessing of marriage, it’s the cement that bonds two earthly bodies together, that blends their souls for all eternity.”
Case was again caught by surprise. He’d never heard his father speak this way about love, or about marriage, or about Mairi Reilly Malloy. For once, he began to understand what his mother saw in Seamus when she fell in love with him. Before Seamus’s long, losing battle with the bottle corroded the beautiful, shining bond of their love.
“Mairi and I would have had a rocky marriage, don’t doubt that,” Seamus reflected somberly. “And she ran away from me once, just because she couldn’t stand the drinking and the way I threw the money away that she needed for the groceries. But after you came along, she knew she needed help, and the only place she thought to turn to was her family. She begged them for money,” Seamus said, a touch of bitterness returning to his voice. His stung pride showed in his stiff shoulders and angry eyes. “They told her they’d see to it that I lost every job I got, unless she came back home to them and agreed to let them try to annul the marriage in the eyes of the church. They told her if she agreed to divorce me, they’d see to it that money was set aside for you, Case. A trust fund that would be yours alone when you reached a certain age. There she was, didn’t have the money to feed you, couldn’t pay for medicine when you got sick, barely could put clothes on your back. She was desperate. You were the light of her heart. So she took the deal.”
“But that left me with you. I thought you always hated her for abandoning me when I was little.”
“True, but it let me apply for welfare for you, boy,” Seamus said with a laugh. “I was disabled by drinking half the time. I told them she’d run off, and back then it was hard for the counties to track down a missing parent. When it was a woman, they often didn’t bother. It never occurred to them that I might be married to a woman of some financial means,” he added with wry amusement.
Case hung his head and closed his eyes. He’d always hated that period of his life, when Seamus had taken the government’s money. He’d just been old enough to go to a baby-sitter, which had been paid for by the county, so his father could try to get work.
He’d never been so relieved as the day his father told him they were moving because he’d gotten work in another state. As soon as he was old enough to wash dishes or deliver papers, he’d started earning money himself, determined not to be the target of ridicule anymore.
Case saw the faraway look in Seamus’s eyes. It was a new experience. He’d never seen his old man like this before, drunk or sober.
“When did you get the letter?” Case asked.
“A courier brought it to the prison the morning I was packing to leave, but I didna read it until last night…before I went to bed.” Seamus cracked a small grin. “I was afraid I might not wake up, and so I read it.”
“I see.” Case pondered the changes he was seeing in his father. Had they come from this small bit of insight provided by his dead mother’s letter? “Luther…” Case cleared his throat uncomfortably. He didn’t want to disturb this newfound communication with his dying father, but he could see no way around asking this question. “Luther seemed to think you wouldn’t wa
nt me here, but I don’t think you feel that way now. Did the letter change that much for you, Da?”
Seamus sighed and looked at his son. He pulled him down, forcing Case to kneel so they were looking at each other eye to eye.
“Yes. It was the last piece of hatred in my heart, and it seems that all the saints in heaven intend that I die with no hatred left in me, so they sent your dead mother’s letter to show me that she hadn’t betrayed me, she hadn’t abandoned you, and that I’ve been a fool all my life. So I accept it, as I accepted the prison term. It’s a way to learn humility, I decided. And while I wanted to keep you away from my last days, to keep this pain to myself, reading that letter made me look at things a different way.”
“A different way?”
Seamus leaned forward and gripped Case by the shoulders with both hands.
“My stubborn pride kept your mother and me apart, as much as her pride and her family’s pride. If I’d learned humility earlier in life, a lot of things might have gone differently for all of us…” His eyes clouded with worry and he stared hard into Case’s eyes, as if he would see Case’s soul. “I’ve tried to make amends for what I’ve done wrong, and for the sins of others that I might have… caused.”
Seamus fell silent.
Case had the distinct impression that Seamus was referring to him.
“What sins have I committed that you caused, Da?” Case asked, thoroughly at a loss to imagine what his father could be talking about.
Seamus looked away and let his hands fall back onto his lap.
“Think about it, boy,” he said tiredly. “Just think about it.”
Luther appeared in the connecting doorway to the kitchen.
“Food’s done,” he announced bluntly. “Come and eat it.”
It was the talk of the town.
Seamus Malloy attended mass at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church, right there on the edge of town, near the old glass-andceramics factory. His son had driven him in a sleek, sandcolored rental car. They didn’t see many rental cars here in Crawfordsville. The shiny paint was always a dead giveaway.