“Yes, of course,” she says. Last Sunday, after Palm Sunday mass, Michael had gotten out the camera. Oh, for heaven’s sake. I look like a cow, she protested. You look beautiful, Michael said and gave the camera to Eugene, who’d been waiting on the front step for them to return from church. Can you take a photo of us all, son? I’ll show you how. You just press here. Thank God, now, Michael had Eugene take that picture. When she gets the film developed, she’ll have copies made for all the children. She’ll have the original framed and set it in the living room. “Please help yourself to refreshments. Thank you for coming.”
She beckons to Patty Ann. “Is Francis in the boys’ bedroom?”
Patty Ann has tried to hide the puffiness of her eyes with the heavy use of a compact, presumably hers. Patty Ann has been forbidden to own makeup before turning sixteen. “I haven’t seen him.”
“Can you please go take a look? And Patty Ann, I think not the powder.”
Patty Ann returns a few minutes later, powder still present, a sullen look added. “He’s not there, Mom.”
Francis knew what time the wake was starting. There’s no excuse for him staying out to play. There’s no excuse for him playing at all today. And yet she can’t find the vim inside herself to get angry. “All right,” she tells Patty Ann. “Go find Mike Jr., then, and tell him to check the school playground. You go look in the toolshed.”
“But Mom—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Patty Ann,” she says, seeing Mrs. Dawson heading toward them, turning away from her daughter. “Not now.”
“Well, at least,” Mrs. Dawson says, reaching for her hand, “a person who leaves us on Good Friday goes straight to heaven.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she says, pulling her hand back, something snapping deep inside. “Michael would go straight to heaven no matter what day he died.”
Mrs. Dawson pretends not to have heard, busying herself with extracting gloves from her boxy purse and then carefully fitting each finger in its place. “I’m so sorry to have to leave already, dear. My parents. Easter. But I’ll be back to fetch Father.”
She put her own white gloves aside, laying them in the top drawer of her dresser next to the children’s baptismal candles sometime between her first and fourth baby, with the blessing of Michael, who liked to feel the smooth skin of her hand in his.
Michael’s hand in hers. His grip, warm and promising.
“Please don’t trouble yourself about Father,” she says, collecting herself. She can do better than this. “We will make sure someone brings him back to the rectory.”
“Oh, dear, no. Please don’t even think about it.”
“No, really. You take care of your folks. We will take care of Father.”
“I can’t find him Mom,” Mike Jr. says, coming through the door. In his Sunday suit and with his wrinkled brow, at thirteen, Mike Jr. already looks like a little man. “He’s not in the yard. He’s not in the car. I went all the way around the block plus down to the school and didn’t see him.”
“Oh, heavens! Did you lose one of your children, Mrs. Gannon?” Mrs. Dawson says.
From the book of Job: Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
“No. The…dog.”
“You have a dog, too?”
“No. I mean, yes,” she says, ignoring Mike Jr.’s startled expression. “I mean our neighbor’s dog. We look out for him.”
“Really? As if you don’t already have enough to think about!”
She places a hand firmly on Mrs. Dawson’s arm and steers her through the door. “Do not worry about the dog, Mrs. Dawson. Or about Father. We will get them both home safely.”
She closes the door.
“Mom?”
“Oh, don’t ask. Where in the dickens is your little brother?”
Although the baby of the family, Francis has always demanded the least attention from her, happy riding his bike around with Eugene or trailing after his father. Why does he have to cause trouble right now? “Go talk to Eugene. Maybe he’ll have some other ideas.”
More people stream in, and still more. Some are dressed in their Easter clothes, some have changed into something more somber. Michael’s kind elderly partner, Dr. Zimmerman, and his wife arrive, looking shell-shocked.
“Shouldn’t you be sitting, Barbara?” he says.
But she can’t sit. She knows she is supposed to preside on the sofa while people take turns perching beside her, pressing her hand, offering up remembrances. Once when I had a flat tire, Michael…Such a nice baritone voice; we’ll miss hearing it on Sundays…Michael was the smartest of us interns at the hospital, but he shared notes with everyone. They want to talk at her. They want her to help them with their shock, their own sadness, unloading their memories upon her. But who will be brave enough to acknowledge that while Michael’s gone, she’s still here, her heart ripped out?
In one corner, several men are discussing President Kennedy and the Soviets and Cuba. They stop when she draws near. By the dining room table, a group of mothers grows silent when she approaches. School, kids, politics, America. The weather. I’m still here, she wants to tell them. I have to keep going. Please help me to pretend life is normal.
If she sits down, she will fall apart. Her body will give out; her heart will give out. She will never ever get up again.
The room swirls around her, a blur of pale faces and somber colors, like sick flooding her home.
“Allow me to offer my sincerest condolences,” a smooth-skinned man in a neat blue suit says, intercepting her passage, extending a hand.
Who is this? There is something familiar about him, but he’s too well dressed to be the milkman or postman out of uniform.
“You and I haven’t been introduced,” he continues, “but I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with your husband after church—while you were otherwise engaged—on several occasions. Ronnie McCloskey.”
“I was running after the kids, probably.”
He smiles and extracts a business card from his inner pocket. “Look. If you need help, something you need a man for…” His face reddens, and he adds quickly, “Maybe to move something or fix something, please don’t hesitate to call me. I don’t have a family of my own. I have time. I will be glad to help.”
The card lies dumbly in her hand: RONALD M. MCCLOSKEY, PRESIDENT, MCCLOSKEY AIR CONDITIONERS.
“The boys will be as big as men soon,” she says, realizing even as she says it how rude she sounds. Mr. McCloskey is just trying to be nice. They’re all just trying to be nice.
“Yes, of course,” he says, shifting a little in his handsome suit.
She stuffs the card into the pocket of her dress and turns away. Los Angeles was the special home she and Michael carved out for themselves, just themselves, their own personal history. Here she is now, alone, miles away from family. But what family does she have anywhere who could help her? Her brother is dead. Her parents barely manage. Both were first-generation Americans; there are some cousins in northern California, but none she’s seen or even spoken with in years. And then there’s Jeanne, clear across the continent. Not long after she and Michael married, her in-laws both succumbed to the polio epidemic.
Someone ushers her toward the sofa. “The eulogies are going to begin now, Barbara.” She stops to stand beside Father O’Malley’s chair. Mike Jr. joins her; she leans against his shoulder. Luke takes his place on the other side of her.
“We shouldn’t call it a living room today,” Luke whispers. “We should call it a dying room.”
“Shh. Luke.”
It’s just a dream. An awful dream. Tomorrow morning, dawn will creep in between the drapes, and Michael’s warm body will stir in the bed next to her. He will put his arms around her. They will make love before the children awaken. He will dress for work. She will hurry to get breakfast on the table.
The baby suddenly drives down hard. She balls her fist in her mouth to keep from gasping.
“There, there, dear,” someone says from behind her, patting her back.
“When we give tribute to Michael,” Father O’Malley says, “we also have to give tribute to the great faith that kept him going during even the darkest days of the war. Throughout, he ceaselessly strove to save the lives of his fellow soldiers. He never gave up. He never gave in. Michael Gannon was a true hero. And our Lord was his hero.”
“I need to sit down,” she says.
Space is hurriedly made for her on the sofa next to Patty Ann, Jeanne, and Molly. Luke crowds in beside her. Mike Jr. stands over them. Someone brings her a glass of water.
With her family resettled, Father O’Malley continues. When he is done, Dr. Zimmerman starts speaking. And then someone else. The words drum against her, but she won’t let them inside. The only way to keep going is to pretend it isn’t happening.
Finally, all the words stop.
People begin to take their leave. They come up to her, kiss her cheek, press her upper arm. Patty Ann gets up brusquely from the sofa and walks away.
“May heaven comfort you,” Dr. Zimmerman says, taking her hand, before she can go after Patty Ann, try to say something that could make this all less terrible.
“You can count on us,” Mrs. Zimmerman says.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for coming.”
Women she is friendly with from the neighborhood, from the school, from church will bring casseroles for a week or two. When the baby is born they will bring still more. There will be meetings with Dr. Zimmerman, and maybe someone at the VA, and with a lawyer. But in the end, there will just be her and Patty Ann and Mike Jr. and Luke and Francis and the baby.
Oh, God.
“Are you sure Francis didn’t say anything about where he was going?” she asks Molly. “Nothing at all?”
“What’s going on?” Jeanne says.
“Aunt Barbara can’t find Francis.”
“Since when?”
“Since a little after we went to Eugene’s.”
“But Barbara,” Jeanne says. “That was hours ago.”
She catches sight of the well-dressed man from earlier, the one who gave her a business card, one of the last to file out the door. “Mike Jr.,” she says. “See that man? Can you please ask him to take Father O’Malley back to the rectory? Where’s Patty Ann gone?”
“Maybe you should call someone, Mom,” Mike Jr. says.
Call someone? Whom? There is only she.
“I’ll go see about Patty Ann,” Jeanne says. “You just sit.”
So, so heavy. The baby is grinding down against her pelvis again. Stop that! Not now! Not already! “That’s okay, Jeanne. I have to get up to look for Francis anyhow.”
“Patty Ann is talking to the police,” Molly announces, pointing.
“What?” She and Jeanne swivel in the direction of Molly’s finger.
There on the front step is Patty Ann, the powder on her face streaked with tears, speaking with a young police officer.
She hoists herself to her feet, Jeanne rising beside her. “What’s going on?” she says, bracing herself with a hand on the doorjamb. She looks past Patty Ann and the officer to the street, at the mourners getting into their cars or walking home along the sidewalk. And at the curb in front, a police car, the back door open. Francis stands beside it, held firmly in place by a second police officer.
“Oh, no,” Jeanne says.
Francis looks a little dusty, a little embarrassed. No blood, no bruises.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she says, relief warming her face and hands.
“We found your son, ma’am, at the bus station,” the young officer says, looking back and forth between her and Jeanne. “He won’t say how he got there. He wouldn’t say where he was trying to go, either. That is your son? One of you is Mrs. Michael Gannon?”
The bus station? “Oh, Francis!”
Francis looks down at his feet. A smudge of dirt shadows his delicate cheekbone.
“Yes,” she says. “That’s my son. I’m sorry, officer.”
“Ma’am—” the officer begins.
“Oh, leave her alone,” Luke says. “My dad just died, okay? This is his wake.”
“Luke! Don’t speak to the officer that way.”
The young policeman glances at her stomach, looks at Luke and then at Mike Jr., Patty Ann, and Molly. Then he looks at Francis. “My condolences, ma’am.”
“She’s not mine,” she says reflexively, of Molly.
“Excuse me?” the police officer says.
“Oh, never mind.” She smothers a sob.
“Here, Mom,” Patty Ann says, handing her a soiled tissue.
“No, no,” she says, extracting the handkerchief from within her shirtsleeve.
The other police officer releases Francis. He shuffles toward the house, still avoiding her eyes, as the policemen get back into their car.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Where, Francis?” she says, touching his thin shoulder.
He scuffs the ground. “Nowhere.”
“All right.” Because what else is she supposed to say? Because how could he run away right now, just when the going gets tough? Because who wouldn’t want to run away from this—but how is it conceivable that one of Michael’s children would? Michael never ran away from anything in his life. Not running away was Michael. She lets her hand drop. There’s going to be work ahead. “Okay. Get into the house now.”
The kids file back into the house, Luke following Patty Ann and Mike Jr., Francis following Luke. Molly brings up the rear. This is what it will look like tomorrow, she thinks. All of them behind Michael’s casket.
She stops in front of the open door, breathes deeply.
“What will you do?” Jeanne asks in a soft voice.
“That,” she says, “is the question.”
Not today. Not tomorrow. But the day after. And every day after that.
A Marriage / August 26, 1965
Francis
FRANCIS STIRS HIS FINGERS through the sand, combing for flat pebbles. It’s not so hot as it has been, and the sudden cool feels like a billboard announcing the first day of school. He’ll be turning east up Brookhaven, in the opposite direction from the beach, come Monday morning. Another nine and a half months cooped up in a classroom.
“Let’s go out onto the pier.”
Eugene shakes his head. “I don’t have any money.”
“Doesn’t matter. To look at the water.” They have the whole sea in front of them here on the beach, so he adds, “Let’s see if anyone’s caught anything.”
He needs to get up and move.
They drag their bikes through the sand, lean them against a pillar, and tie their tennis shoes around the handlebars. Then they look at each other and, without speaking, break into a sprint.
He hits the middle of the pier way ahead. It’s really not fair to race. After all, Eugene’s got the asthma.
“Here,” he says, pulling up short. “I’ll buy us Cokes.”
“Boss!” Eugene says, dropping his hands onto his knees beside him, panting.
“Ugh. Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Cause it makes you sound like a candy-ass.”
The pier feels empty—they find no fishermen and none of the usual couples, either. Two or three tourists wander around looking sun-struck, although today’s almost cloudy. The whole beach is quieter than usual for an afternoon in August, especially for the last Thursday before school starts back up. People are keeping to themselves since that Negro neighborhood went crazy. Even his mom, whom nothing ever scares, told him not to wander too far from home when he left this morning. And not because she thought he might try to run away yet again.
There’s only enough change in his pocket for one soda. He pops the top and hands the bottle to Eugene. “Share?”
“Yeah.”
They lean their stomachs against the pier railing, passing the bottle back and forth between them.
Up toward Pacific Palisades, surfers bob on the swells, little specks in the distance, like brightly colored seagulls. It takes more than riots to keep the surfers away.
“You think we should learn to surf?” Eugene says.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
He shrugs. “I don’t dig the sea enough.”
“Oh, come on. Who doesn’t dig the sea? Well, except David Balfour.”
“Who?”
“You know. In Kidnapped, the summer book. The one we were supposed to read.”
“You read that? Since when do you do the summer reading?”
Eugene looks sheepish. “My mom made me.”
“Did she read it to you, too?”
Eugene punches him in the arm, but not hard. “It was a good book. Well, not that bad.”
They walk down toward the end of the pier. A collection of trawlers plows slowly through the Pacific a few miles out.
“What do you see?” Eugene asks, squinting. “With those eagle eyes of yours.”
The sun has made its way toward the horizon. It glints off the mast of one of the boats; there is action below, something being pulled onto the deck. The sun-way along the sea’s surface makes the water seem even darker, almost metallic.
“Nothing. Boats.”
He has better than twenty-twenty vision. Unlike Eugene, who has to wear glasses.
“Maybe I’ll become a sailor,” Eugene says, “when I leave school. Get out of here, see the world.”
“Not me, man. Being trapped out in the middle of the sea on a boat is about the worst thing I can think of.”
“That’s stupid. Worse than having your fingernails pulled out? Or being pinned above a bamboo plant until it grows right through you?”
“Shut up, Eugene.”
Eugene picks at a scab on his wrist. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”
Shining Sea Page 3