by Maeve Binchy
“Because you are still her husband,” Moira stammered.
“They think I’m dead, and I am as far as they are concerned.”
“You’ve known all the time?” Moira was astounded.
“I knew you at once. I remember you well from back home—you haven’t changed a bit. Tough, able to take things. You didn’t have a great childhood.”
This man, ending his days in a hostel, pitied her. Moira felt weak at the way the earth had tilted.
“You’re very good to tell me, but honestly we should just leave things the way they are—that way there’s the least damage.”
“But …”
“But nothing. Leave it happen, let them get married. Don’t mention me.”
“How did you know?” Her voice was almost a whisper.
“I did have a friend I stayed in touch with—he kept me posted.”
“And is he there in Liscuan now, your friend?”
“No, he’s dead, Moira. Only you and I know now.”
Secrets were a great equalizer, Moira thought. He wasn’t calling her Miss Tierney now.
Linda told her mother that Moira was as good as her word. She had made appointments here and introductions there, and the process was now under way. Nick and Linda said they would have been lost in a fog without her. She seemed to find no obstacles in her way. A perfect quality in a social worker.
“I can’t understand why none of you like her,” Linda said. “I’ve never met anyone as helpful in my life.”
“She’s fine at her work,” Clara agreed. “But, God, I wouldn’t like to go on a holiday with her. She manages to insult and upset everyone in some way.”
Frank agreed with her. “She’s a woman who never smiles,” he said disapprovingly. “That’s a character flaw in a person.”
“She had the strength of character to refuse to be your spy when she came to the clinic,” Clara said cheerfully. “That’s another point in her favor.”
“I think she must have misread the situation there.…” Frank didn’t want to bring disharmony into their home.
· · ·
It was nine o clock in the evening when Noel and Malachy turned up at Emily and Hat’s house to collect Frankie.
Noel was pale but calm. Malachy looked very tired.
“I’m going to spend the night in Chestnut Court,” Malachy said to Emily.
“That’s great. Lisa’s taken her things so it might be a bit lonely there otherwise,” Emily said neutrally.
Frankie, who had been fast asleep, woke up and was delighted to be the center of attention.
“Dada!” she said to Noel.
“That’s right,” he said mechanically.
“I’ve been explaining to Frankie that her granny and granda are going to build a lovely, safe garden where she and all her friends can play.”
“Great,” said Malachy.
“Yes,” said Noel.
“Your parents are going to have a sod-turning ceremony for the children’s garden on Saturday. The work is going to start then.”
“Sure,” Noel said.
Wearily, Malachy got them on the road. Frankie was chattering away from her stroller. Words that were recognizable but not making any sense.
Noel was silent. He was there in body but not in spirit; surely people were able to guess something was different, something had changed. Frankie was just the same child she had been this morning but everything else had changed, and he hadn’t yet had time to get accustomed to the idea.
Malachy slept on the sofa. During the night he heard Frankie start to cry and Noel get up to soothe the little girl and comfort her. The moonlight fell on Noel’s face as he sat and held the child; Malachy could see there were tears on his cheeks.
Moira took the train to Liscuan. She was met at the station by Pat and Erin.
“Who’s minding the store?” she asked.
“Plenty of help, good neighbors, all delighted that we’re going to your father’s wedding.” Erin was dressed to the nines with a rose-and-cream-colored outfit, a big pink rose in her hair. Moira felt dowdy in her best suit. She looked at Erin’s dainty, girlish handbag and wished she had not brought her own serious-looking briefcase. Still, too late to change now. They would need to hurry to be in time for the ceremony.
There were about fifty people waiting at the church.
“You mean all these people know that our father is getting married?” she asked Pat.
“Aren’t they all so pleased for him?” Pat said. It was as simple as that.
And Moira prepared to sit through the whole ceremony, nuptial Mass and papal blessing knowing that she was the only person present who knew the whole story. When it came to the part where the priest asked was there any reason why these two persons should not marry, Moira sat dumb.
The presents were displayed in one of the reception rooms at the Stella Maris, and everyone seemed to think highly of the hand-painted tablecloth. Maureen Kennedy, now Maureen Tierney and her stepmother, drew Moira aside.
“That was really a most thoughtful gift, and I hope now that the situation has been regularized you will come sometime and stay under our roof and maybe we will eat dinner with this beautiful cloth on the table.”
“That would be lovely,” Moira breathed.
Faith had been away for three days, and when she came back she rushed in to pick up Frankie.
“Have I brought you the cutest little boots?” she said to the baby as she hugged her.
“The child has far too many clothes,” Noel said.
“Ah, Noel, they’re lovely little boots—look at them!”
“She’ll have grown out of them in a month,” he said.
The light had gone out of Faith’s face. “Sorry—is something annoying you?”
“Just the way everyone piles clothes on her. That’s all.”
“I’m not everyone and I’m not piling clothes on her. She needs shoes to go to the opening of the site for the new garden on Saturday.”
“Oh, God—I’d forgotten that.”
“Better not let your parents know you did. It’s the highlight of their year.”
“Will there be lots of people there?” he asked.
“Noel, are you all right? You look different somehow, as if something fell on you.”
“It did in a way,” Noel said.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“No, not at the moment. Is that all right? I’m sorry for being so rude—they’re adorable shoes; Frankie will be the last word on Saturday.”
“Of course she will—now will I get us some supper?”
“You’re a girl in a million, Faith.”
“Oh, much more than that—one in a billion, I’d say,” she said and went into the kitchen.
Noel forced himself into good humor. Frankie was unpacking the little pink boots from their box with huge concentration. Why couldn’t she be his child? He sat in the kitchen and watched Faith move deftly around, getting together a supper in minutes, something that would have taken him forever.
“You love Frankie as much as if she were yours, don’t you?” he said.
“Of course I do. Is this what’s worrying you? She is mine in a way, since I mostly live with her and I help to look after her.”
“But the fact that she’s not yours doesn’t make any difference?”
“What are you on about, Noel? I love the child. I’m mad about her—don’t you know that?”
“Yes, but you’ve always known she wasn’t yours,” he said sadly.
“Oh, I know what this is all about—it’s this ludicrous Moira who started this off in your head. It’s like a wasp in your mind, Noel, buzzing at you. Chase it away. You’re obviously her father; you’re a great father.”
“Suppose I had a DNA test and found she wasn’t—what then?”
“You’d insult that beautiful child by having a DNA test? Noel, you’re unhinged. And what would it matter what the test said, anyway?”
He could have told h
er there and then. Gone to the drawer and taken out the letter with the results. He could have said that he had done the test and the answer was that Frankie was not his. This was the only girl he had ever felt close enough to even consider marrying; should he share this huge secret with her?
Instead, he shrugged.
“You’re probably right—only a very suspicious, untrusting person would go for that test.”
“That’s more like it, Noel,” Faith said happily.
Noel sat for a long time at the table when Faith left. He had three envelopes in front of him: one contained the results of the DNA test, one had the letter that Stella had left for him before she died and one held the letter she had addressed to Frankie. Back in the frightening early days when fighting to keep away from drink on an hourly basis, he had often been tempted to open the letter to Frankie. In those days he was anxious to look for some reason to keep going, something that might give him strength. Today he wanted to read it in case Stella had told her daughter who her real father was.
Something stopped him, though, perhaps some sense of playing fair. Although, of course, that was nonsense. Stella certainly hadn’t played fair. Still, if he hadn’t opened it back then, he would not do it now.
What had Stella got from it all, anyway? A short, restless life, a lot of pain and fear, no family, no friends. She never got to see her baby or know the little arms around her neck. Noel had got all this and more. A year ago, what did Noel have going for him? Not much. A drunk in a dead-end job, without friends, without hope. It had all changed because of Frankie. How lonely and frightened Stella must have felt that last night.
He reached out and read the letter she had written to him in that ward. “Tell Frankie that I wasn’t all bad …” she had said. “Tell her that if things had been different you and I would both have been there to look after her …”
Noel straightened his shoulders.
He was Frankie’s father in every way that mattered. Perhaps Stella had made a genuine mistake? Who knew what happened in other people’s lives? And suppose somehow Stella was looking out for Frankie from somewhere—she deserved to know better than that the baby had been abandoned at the age of twelve months. Noel had loved this child yesterday, he still loved her today. He would always love her. It was as simple as that.
He reached across the table and put the two letters from Stella into the drawer. The letter with the DNA results he tore into tiny pieces.
It was a fine day for the turning of the sod. Charles and Josie put their hands together on the shovel and dug into the ground of the small waste patch they had secured for the new garden. Everyone clapped and Father Flynn said his customary few words about the great results that came from a sense of community involvement and caring.
Some of Muttie’s Associates had come to watch the ceremony, and one of them was heard to say he would much prefer a statue of Muttie and Hooves to be raised instead of some long-dead saint whom nobody knew anything about.
Lizzie was there, with her arm around Simon’s shoulders. He was going to New Jersey next week but had promised to be back in three months to tell them all what it was like. Marco and Maud stood together; Marco had hopes of a spring wedding but Maud said she was in no hurry to marry.
“Your grandfather gave me his blessing to marry you,” Marco whispered.
“Yes, but he didn’t say in the blessing when you were to marry me,” Maud said firmly.
Declan, Johnny and a visibly pregnant Fiona were there, with Declan’s parents and Dimples, the big dog. Dimples had a love-hate relationship with Caesar, the tiny spaniel. It wasn’t that he had anything against Caesar—it was just that he was too small to be a proper dog.
Emily and Hat were there, part of the scenery now. People hardly remembered a time when they were not together. Emily was noting everything to tell Betsy that night by e-mail. She would even send her a picture of it all. Betsy too had fallen under the spell of this little community and was always asking for details of this and that. She and Eric had every intention of coming back again next year and catching up where they had left off.
Emily thought back to the first day that she herself had arrived in this street and heard her uncle and aunt’s plans to build a huge statue. How amazing that it had all turned out so differently and so well.
Noel, Faith and Frankie were there, Frankie showing everyone her new pink boots. People pointed out to Noel that one of the houses in the Crescent would shortly be for sale—maybe he and Faith could buy it. Then Frankie would be near her garden. It was a very tempting idea, they said.
And as they wound their way back to Emily and Hat’s house, where tea and cakes were being served, Noel felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He passed the house where Paddy Carroll and his wife, Molly, had slaved to raise their son, a doctor, and then past Muttie and Lizzie’s house, where those twins had found a better home than they could have dreamed of. He blinked a couple of times as he began to realize that a lot of things didn’t matter anymore.
Frankie wanted to walk the length of the road, even though she wasn’t really able to; Faith followed with the buggy but Frankie struggled hard, holding Noel’s hand and calling out “Dada” a lot. Just as they got to Emily and Hat’s place, her little legs began to buckle and Noel swung her up into his arms.
“Good girl, Daddy’s good little girl,” he said over and over. His chest was much less tight, the awful feeling of running down a long corridor gone. He put his other arm around Faith’s shoulders and ushered his little family into the house to have tea.
My dear, dear Frankie, my lovely daughter,
I will never see you or know you, but I do love you so very much. I fought hard to live for you but it didn’t work. I started too late, you see. If only I had known that I would have a little girl to live for … But it’s all far too late for those kind of wishes now. Instead I wish you the very best that life can give you. I wish you courage—I have plenty of that. Too much, some might say! I hope that you will not be as foolhardy and as reckless as I was. Instead, may you have peace and the love of good people who will mind you and make you happy. Tonight I sit here in a ward where nobody can really sleep. It’s my last night here, you see, and tomorrow is your first day here. I wish we had been able to meet.
But I know one thing. Noel will be a great father. He is very strong and he can’t wait to meet you tomorrow. He has been preparing for weeks, getting things ready for you, learning how to hold you, to feed you, to change you. He will be a wonderful dad and I have this very clear feeling that you will be the light of his life.
So many people are waiting for you tomorrow. Don’t be sad for me—you have managed to make sense of my life eventually!
Live well and happily, little Frankie. Laugh a lot and be full of trust, not suspicion.
Remember your mother loved you with all her heart.
—Stella
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my editor, Carole Baron, and my agent, Chris Green, who have been hugely supportive and great friends to me during the writing of this book.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maeve Binchy is the author of numerous best-selling books, including her most recent novel, Heart and Soul, in addition to Nights of Rain and Stars, Quentins, Scarlet Feather, Circle of Friends and Tara Road, which was an Oprah’s Book Club selection. She has written for Gourmet; O, The Oprah Magazine; Modern Maturity and Good Housekeeping, among other publications. She and her husband, Gordon Snell, live in Dalkey, Ireland.
Table of Contents
Cover
Also by Maeve Binchy
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
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Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Acknowledgments
A Note About the Author