Grounded Hearts

by Jeanne M. Dickson

  When they neared town, the sight of the church bell tower against the moonlit night was comforting. Yet foreboding.

  Nan felt a bone-chilling coldness.

  Death. Nearby.

  She shook off the sensation, refusing to believe it could be Kelly. Tears bit the corner of her eyes at the mere thought. But the feeling, the creeping darkness, did not go away.

  They cycled down the quiet streets, the moonlight casting eerie shadows on the two-story buildings. Upstairs windows were mostly dark. Only the barking of dogs creased the night air with sound.

  Finally, they reached the town square. The Celtic cross in the center seemed to slant backward, but perhaps that was only a trick of light. A horse pulling a cart meandered around the square, the cart’s occupant slumped over and clutching the reins. Paul paused for a second but continued on.

  He looked back at Nan. “Carlow will have to wait.”

  They pedaled past the rectory house. Nan pictured Father Albert in his private quarters, no doubt preparing Sunday’s sermon. From the father’s open window, the tender voice of John McCormack penetrated the night air in a sorrowful song.

  A sigh escaped her throat at the thought of the confession booth. She’d rather not confess, but then again, she didn’t want to burn in hell for all eternity. Once Dutch was on his way, she’d square things with God. Receive absolution for her sins and do her penance.

  She gazed at the moon and the silver clouds.

  I promise, Lord.

  Although that wasn’t true, was it? She couldn’t tell Father Albert about Teddy, rotting in his grave in a place where he shouldn’t be. She’d go to her own grave with that secret. And doom herself to purgatory, too.

  She stopped the mental spiral before it sank too deep. Not now, she told herself. Worry about your fate later. She had to concentrate on those still on earth.

  Dutch waited for what seemed an eternity before he came out of his hiding place. Nan’s absence left the warm cottage feeling cold.

  His knee was aching and swollen as a football. His arm stung, but the wound reminded him of why he’d happened upon her door, of how much Nan had helped him. He’d kissed her. And he wanted to kiss her again. His lips burned. His fingers trembled over his mouth.

  It certainly hadn’t been his mission to find romance when he’d knocked on her door. And it was the worst-possible time to find a girl he was sure he could love forever. That is, if she’d give him a chance.

  He stared at Teddy’s portrait on the mantel. She clearly hadn’t put her husband to rest. What was the hold this dead man had on her? It was as though he was reaching up from the grave, still keeping her at his side.

  But Dutch had kissed Nan. And she’d kissed him back. It wasn’t his imagination.

  He wondered what would have happened if Halpin hadn’t turned up. The heat between them might have carried them in a direction neither of them intended to go before marriage.

  Seated on the comfy chair, he stared at the fire. This was torture. His mission was to get out of Ireland, to return to the base and win the war. Why did he feel he needed to save Nan when she didn’t even want to be saved? That creep, Finn. He was trouble. Dutch smacked the arm of the chair. Why didn’t she see the danger?

  He had a few hours to convince her, he supposed. Time to get back to business. Noticing the edge of the map peeking out of the box, he got up and returned to the table. He spread the map out, but his concentration drifted back to what had happened right on this spot.

  He’d kissed her. And she’d kissed him back.

  Yes, he was sure, she’d kissed him back. The fact filled him with an ache.

  He pushed away the sensation and instead thought about his escape route. After several minutes, he folded up the map, praying it was accurate.

  He closed his eyes. “Lord. Please be with me during my escape and grant me traveling mercies. And protect the women of Ballyhaven who have helped me.” Taking a breath, he savored the scent of fresh bread and tea. He gazed around the simple, clean room. It was comfortable here. A shelter from the real world.

  Well, he realized, the house might be simple, but Nan wasn’t. Part of him wanted to keep hiding, but his unit called. Duty called. The war called.

  Ah, Nan. What would happen to her? When would he see her again? And would there be room in her heart for another man? He looked again at the picture of Teddy. “What did you do to her?”

  He had to stop this, had to do something productive or he’d go mad. His gun. He’d go on the hunt again. Maybe his gun was hidden in the loft. He picked up a lit lantern and headed up the steep stairs.

  He paused on the landing. The loft was cold, tomb-like, a startling contrast to the warm rooms below. Or maybe it was merely the dead man’s desk, the typewriter, and the manuscript, all left there undisturbed. Seemed unlikely Nan would stash the gun in one of the drawers and violate the mausoleum she’d erected in her husband’s honor. Nonetheless, Dutch pulled out the desk chair and sat.

  He opened the top drawer, then another and another. All packed with pens, ink, paper, but no gun. A silver hip flask with the initials “TOO” engraved in curly script was wedged among the letters in the bottom drawer.

  “Too?” He muttered. Yeah. Too much.

  Out of nowhere, the cat jumped onto the desktop.

  “What’s going on, Mr. Dee?”

  The tabby meandered over the surface, knocking manuscript pages to the floor.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you did that on purpose.” He picked up the scattered pages.

  Teddy’s poems. A genius, the next Yeats, wasn’t that what Nan had proclaimed?

  It felt like snooping, but Dutch started reading. As he read, his blood pressure soared. Didn’t take much scrutiny to realize what old Teddy boy was all about. He slapped the pages back into a messy pile. Self-indulgent, misogynist garbage.

  The poet wasn’t a genius; he was a complete disgrace, with his venom aimed at everything and everyone. Especially Nan. “The whore wife who sucks the life out of me.” It made Dutch’s stomach churn to read such rubbish.

  He’d like to take Teddy out to the woodshed and give him a few whacks, something Teddy’s parents should have done.

  His thoughts softened. The guy was mental. For him to hate women so much, perhaps Teddy’s mother had done something unspeakable to him. Not that it was an excuse. Teddy had choices. Drinking himself into a daily stupor had been a choice. Marrying Nan had been a choice.

  The way his life ended—Dutch suspected that had been a choice, too.

  He wondered what he ought to do, if he ought to say something to her. How could Nan continue to give her heart, her life, her entire being to this dead creep? Hadn’t she read the poems? Didn’t she grasp their meaning? “No love hath I other than the drink for my wife is a poor excuse for being married.”

  Nan shouldn’t be suffering over this man. She was squandering her time and energy. Throwing pearls at swine.

  Straightening the pile of papers, Dutch wondered if he ought to let it go. It wasn’t his business. Nor was it his place. Yet if he didn’t talk to her, who would?

  He yawned, made his way to the other side of the room. After checking under the bed and the nightstand, he sat on the mattress. Just a nap, he told himself, settling into the comfort of a wool blanket.

  Tossing and turning, his mind would not rest. He couldn’t leave without talking to her. She was too good to mourn a man who didn’t deserve her love.

  She wouldn’t like it, though, being presented with the naked truth. Might cost him their friendship. The cat jumped onto the bed and settled next to Dutch’s head.

  He didn’t want to, but he had to talk to her. It’d be worth the pain of losing her if he could free her from her emotional prison.

  CHAPTER 19

  The wind buckled the Halpins’ upstairs window, startling Nan as though she’d been slapped on the cheeks. She stared at her reflection in the multipaned window. Had she missed something after the birt
h? What? What could cause a young, healthy mum to slide toward an early grave?

  Nan packed up her medical bag, unable to shake the feeling of doom. She went over and over the details of the delivery in her mind. Two weeks early, but that was no cause for alarm. Or harm. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing.

  So why, less than forty-eight hours after the birth, was Kelly bleeding out?

  The situation was grave, and there was nothing Nan could do for Kelly besides hold her hand and wait. The ambulance would be there soon to take her to hospital. As fate would have it, Dr. Mann had finally been found, but Nan knew it was already too late.

  Mrs. Norman entered the room. “Here’s your tea, Nan. Drink some before ya fall on your face from thirst.” The cup clanked onto the dresser top beside Nan’s medical bag.

  “Thanks.”

  Nan’s turmoil must have been obvious, as Mrs. Norman squeezed her arm and whispered into her ear.

  “Sometimes explanations remain in the hands of the Lord,” she said.

  “I know.” The painful truth seared Nan’s heart.

  Paul. How would he cope with the loss of another wife? She trembled at the mere thought of the coffin being lowered into the village graveyard.

  “Nan. Sit next to me and my daughter.” Kelly’s voice was barely a whisper. Baby Maeve cuddled next to her, asleep against the warmth of her ma.

  Nan held Kelly’s wrist, checking her pulse. Weak but steady. “You’re going to be fine.”

  “Then why do I feel the life draining from me?”

  “Now, now. You’ll be fine.”

  Kelly looked toward the ceiling. “You’re being optimistic.”

  “You’re being pessimistic. After an operation—”

  “I won’t have any more children.” The words sounded desperate.

  There was a painful knot in Nan’s throat. “Thank the Lord that you have a lovely daughter.”

  “I wanted to fill my house with children.”

  “Then you’ll love Maeve all the more.” Nan brushed her hand over the dewy head of the child.

  Tears ran down Kelly’s cheeks. “If I don’t come back, Maeve, don’t you worry. Your da is a wonderful man, and he’ll look after you. And I’ll be waiting for ya in heaven.”

  “Stop talking such nonsense.” This time it was Mrs. Norman. She adjusted the pillow behind Kelly’s head. “You’ll give the poor dear child nightmares.”

  The young woman’s face was as pale as a wedding veil. Deep lines etched her forehead and around her eyes. Life itself seemed to be dripping out of her.

  “You be a good girl for your da, Maeve.”

  “Of course she will.” Mrs. Norman winked. “Maeve is one of us. An honorary Shamrock Sister. I promise.”

  A clamor of footsteps stomping up the stairway sent Nan to the door. It was the ambulance crew.

  “About time you showed up,” Mrs. Norman said. “You’re in a motor ambulance, aren’t you? Not some horse-drawn cart?”

  “That we are,” the burly driver said. “We’re not completely in Victorian times, ya know.”

  “Yep,” the second added. “When we kicked dirty-drawers Victoria and her lot out of Eire, we gave her back her horse-drawn ambulances.”

  “Shame you gave back your manners, too.” Mrs. Norman scooped up the baby.

  “Ah, ya got a mouth on ya, don’t ya, missus?” With hearty laughter, the men lifted Kelly from the bed onto a stretcher and headed out of the room.

  Baby Maeve must have sensed her mother’s absence. She let out a howl.

  “There, there, there.” Mrs. Norman dipped a washcloth into a glass of whiskey that she’d poured for Officer Halpin. She placed the cloth into the baby’s gaping mouth.

  “Mrs. Norman, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “It’s how I calmed my own six boys. Worked every time.”

  “You’d get your babies drunk so they’d pass out?”

  “Taught them to be good Irish drinkers.”

  “I don’t know if that’s something to be proud of.” Nan rummaged through her medical bag until she found a pacifier.

  “Ah sure. They’re all good lads, every one of them. Even if they all left Ireland for other parts of the world.”

  “Here, let Maeve suck on this instead,” Nan said.

  “A dummy? Well, aren’t you the smart one, carrying this in that bag of tricks ya got there.”

  “I am a midwife, after all. I’m going to insist Sergeant Halpin go to hospital with Kelly. You can take care of Maeve for a while?”

  “Like I was her grandma. Will they be long?”

  “They will.” The reality sank deep into her bones. This might be Kelly’s first night in eternity. “I’m trusting you with the baby.”

  “Of course ya can. Anu Collins can wet-nurse her, don’t ya think?”

  Nan nodded. “If she’d be so kind.”

  “Ah, she will. She told me she has enough milk to feed the Irish Army. I told her that was disgusting.”

  “Agreed.” Nan watched the baby drawing on the dummy, the infant’s sucking noises filling the room.

  Mrs. Norman swayed back and forth with Maeve. “Tell me so, Nan, will Kelly be coming back?”

  “In God’s hands” was all she could say.

  “I’ll get the Shamrocks together for the rosary. And we’ll light candles. Call on Holy Mother Mary and all the saints and angels in heaven to see our Kelly through.”

  Nan touched the baby’s soft cheek. “That’d be grand. I best be off. Please don’t teach Maeve any dirty Irish tricks while she’s in your care.”

  “Ah no. Maybe a bit of the jig, though. What do you say?” Mrs. Norman smiled at the baby as she rocked her side to side.

  “Nurse Nan?” Paul Halpin called from the bottom of the stairs. “May I have a word?”

  His forehead was creased into a million lines of concern, leading Nan to wonder if Kelly’s emergency had dug up memories of his first wife’s passing.

  How could it not?

  “Will she be all right?” he asked when Nan reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “We’re doing everything possible. You should go with the ambulance, Paul. Ride in the back with Kelly. Hold her hand.”

  “What about Maeve?”

  “Mrs. Norman will take good care of her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “She raised six of her own. Now go.” She guided him outside into the snapping cold air.

  “In you get,” she said.

  He climbed aboard the ambulance and took Kelly’s hand. “How you doing?”

  His wife burst into tears. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll hear none of that,” he whispered to her in a loving tone.

  The driver shut the doors.

  “Take good care of Mrs. Halpin,” Nan urged him.

  The vehicle sputtered down the moonlit street, and Nan went back inside to gather her things and check on the baby once more.

  As she rode toward home, she had the feeling of death in her soul. Tonight, everything might change for the Halpins. Forever.

  Nan approached Thomas Carlow’s horse-drawn cart. All these hours after she had passed by on her way to help Kelly, the horse was still pulling the cart around the town square, with Thomas slumped in the front seat. Not an uncommon sight.

  “Mr. Carlow,” she called, getting off her bike.

  No response. Undoubtedly gone into the deep well of alcohol-induced sleep after too much Guinness, she figured.

  “Ah now. Mr. Carlow.” She didn’t know what worried her so, yet she found herself reaching out for the horse’s reins. “Whoa, whoa,” she cried.

  The horse obeyed, and Nan came up next to the cart.

  “Mr. Carlow? Mr. Carlow? Will ya not wake up?”

  He didn’t move.

  Nan climbed onto the cart and shook his shoulder. He flopped backward, his eyes fixed ahead.

  Nan gasped. No, he would not wake up this time.

  “Ah, you poor unfortunate thing.
May the Lord have mercy on your soul.” She looked across the street at the lights in the rectory. Good. The priest was still up.

  The lights went off.

  Poor Father Albert, she thought, shaking her head. He believed he was on his way to dreamland, but instead, Nan was about to wake him to take care of the dead.

  The clacking of her boots echoed down the moonlit lane as she walked to the rectory gate. She paused, inhaling the scent of newly turned garden soil.

  Her feelings had been right. Death had come tonight. Perhaps death would not come for Kelly, then.

  “Please, God,” she whispered.

  Nan rang the bell several times before the lights clicked on.

  “There better be someone dead to wake me at this hour,” she heard Father Albert yell before he opened the door.

  “There is.”

  “Who?” He tightened the belt of his robe. The light behind him lit his matted gray hair, reminding Nan of a halo.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Father.”

  “One of your patients needs last rites?”

  “Unfortunately, he’s beyond that. I’m afraid Thomas Carlow is dead.”

  “Ah now. Are ya sure? He’s probably just dead drunk.”

  “I recognize death when I see it.”

  Father Albert stretched forward to get a better look at the horse, who was once again clomping around the cross. “He could have had the decency to wait until morning. Why are you waking me? You ought to tell Halpin. Wake him. He’ll take care of things.”

  Nan jabbed her hands into her coat pockets. “You should know, Father, that Paul—Sergeant Halpin has gone to hospital with Kelly.”

  “What’s wanting?”

  “Your prayers, I’m afraid. Something has gone terribly wrong in the aftermath of birth.”

  “Will she recover?”

  Nan looked down at the nightshirt peeking out of his robe, then met his gaze. “I can’t predict, I’m sad to say.”

  “A sad thing, indeed. Is Dr. Mann on the case?”

  “She is.”

  “Grand. I hear good things about her abilities, even if she is a woman. And an American. Well, it doesn’t look as though I’ll get much rest tonight. Without Halpin, I suppose I’ll need to call that lard-arse Finn to help.”