The Last Will of Moira Leahy: A Novel

by Therese Walsh

  My eyes stumbled over the familiar: Santa Maria in Cosmedin. Why had Putra wanted me to see that place? Could it be that he worked there? Or maybe the place held answers and I'd have to puzzle them out like my own personal da Vinci code.

  With a quiver of excitement, I grabbed my guidebook and looked up Santa Maria in Cosmedin. A church. Featured in the film Roman Holiday. A fountain and some temples sat across the street. The church had a famous drain cover shaped like a god's face--Bocca della Verita, the Mouth of Truth. Well, there went my workplace theory; it seemed unlikely that a Javanese empu would choose to work in a Catholic church.

  I read on, hoping to stumble over some form of illumination, until the phone rang.

  "How's the country?"

  "Kit!" I smiled into the receiver. "How are you?"

  "Buena! That means 'good,' right?"

  I laughed, sat on the bed by my map. "You got it."

  "Did Noel meet you?"

  "Yes, and remind me to kill you."

  "Whatever do you mean?"

  "The single room. Not a good plan."

  "The hotel dude said there were two beds to a room. I just thought ... well, never mind."

  "Exactly." I looked at the bed beside mine--so close but still distinct--and wondered if I'd overreacted. "How are things there? Did you find your present?"

  "Love the massage certificate, thanks!" she said. "Clever leaving it under Sam's food. Don't you trust me?"

  "Nope. Are you going home to feed him?"

  "Well," she said, "I left a really big pile of food."

  "He's going to leave you a really big pile of--"

  "All right, all right. What about you? What have you seen?"

  A comely Italian wielding a sledgehammer, I thought, but Kit's response to that would've been all too predictable. "Took a tour of Trastevere," I said instead. "Lots of delicious smells and old buildings and people kissing on cheeks and all that."

  "And Noel? How is he?"

  "Good."

  "Just good?"

  "He's ... distant." I flopped down on my back. "This whole thing caught him by surprise."

  "So go and buy something decent to wear. God knows your wardrobe couldn't entice a man out of gentlemandom."

  "Who says I want to entice anyone?"

  "I do, but you won't do it with your clothes."

  She'd been such a polite, quiet girl growing up. No hint of the rottweiler she'd become. "All those long hours without sleep have turned you mean."

  "It's called tough love, sweetie. Seriously, do you own anything that might not have been purloined from the closet of a ten-year-old boy? Or purchased at Unisex-R-Us?"

  "Do we have one of those in Betheny? Cool," I said, glancing down at my prone torso. Sure, today's oversized cotton top was figure filtering, but I had a nice set of breasts in there somewhere. Thankfully, she changed the subject.

  "How are you doing? Any weird noises?"

  "Nothing weird." I hadn't even been aware of the music looping through me until she'd asked. Quiet, smoky blues.

  "I found another neurologist for you. Hotter than the last one, just in case things don't work out with Noel."

  "Kit--"

  "Oops, gotta book. Buenas noches!"

  "That's Spanish! For good night!"

  My smile lingered even after I heard the dial tone, until I heard Noel's phone ring.

  "Oh no, you don't." I leaped from the bed, and ran to his room. I couldn't give my matchmaking friend the chance to leave even a five-second message. "Kit--"

  "Sorry, must have the wrong room," said an unfamiliar male voice. English.

  "This is Noel Ryan's room," I said.

  "That's who I'm looking for. Is he there?"

  "No. No, I'm sorry. Can I tell him who called?"

  "Jakes. He can reach me at--"

  "Hold on." I opened the desk drawer. Inside, a FedEx envelope bearing Garrick's familiar bold penmanship seized my attention. Unopened. Unopened? I moved it aside, found paper and pen, jotted a phone number.

  "It's important he call me back," the man said.

  "I'll be sure he does, Jake."

  "Jakes. As in Mister. But Jakes is fine."

  "Okay, Jakes. Mister. I'll give him the message."

  I hung up and touched the envelope. Addressed to Noel in Paris. Sent weeks ago. Why hadn't he opened it?

  There was a knock at my door--a fervent one. "Maeve. Maeve, you there?"

  Noel. I opened his door and peered down the hall at him.

  "What's up?" I asked, when relief flooded his face.

  "Nothing."

  "Where were you?"

  "Nowhere," he said with a strolling tone as he stepped into his room. "Why are you in here?"

  I squinted at him, not buying his sudden nonchalance but distracted by that FedEx package.

  "I was here playing secretary. You just missed a call from a guy named Jakes." I handed him the note, which he took and crumpled without even a glance. "Hey, he wants you--"

  "I know what he wants."

  I put my hand on my hip. "What does he want?"

  "For me to call him. I have his number. He knows it."

  "Who was he?"

  "My bloody investigator. How the hell did he find me?"

  A dozen questions leaped to mind, but Noel's stone-cold expression warned I shouldn't ask any of them. Besides, I didn't like anyone prying into my secrets, so I'd try to honor his. I couldn't deny wanting to pry a little, though. Okay, a lot.

  I tried for levity. "Well, he is an investigator."

  "Remind me to fire him, will you?"

  "He sounded nice enough."

  Noel grunted. "Enough about Jakes. Let's forage for food. Breakfast or lunch."

  "You didn't eat?"

  "Nope, and I'm starved."

  "Then where did you--"

  "You must be hungry, too," he said. Getting better at evasion.

  "Food first," I agreed, "then let's go to Putra's. I think I've figured out a shortcut and--"

  "Maeve."

  "What?"

  "I thought you were going to wait to hear from him."

  "I'm impatient."

  "You're also in Rome, and not Rome, New York. Rome flipping Italy. Go see some of it." He paused. "Unless you're a fraud. Maybe your Italian's not as good as you say."

  I delivered him a long Italian monologue about his everlasting snit, and promised that if he didn't get over it soon, I'd out him to his investigator and throw him into a Roman cab. I knew he didn't understand a word of it.

  "You can't spend all your time chasing after that guy, and that's the truth," he said when I finished.

  Truth. A Machiavellian thought took shape. All right, I told him. I knew just where I wanted to go.

  WE STOPPED AT a bistro filled with tall tables and stools, and gorged ourselves with chicken panino, roasted red pepper, mozzarella, and pesto sandwiches. It would be an understatement to say that Noel seemed distracted.

  "Sorry?" he said for the fifth time during our conversation. I'd never had to repeat myself so much or had a companion look so often out the window. It wasn't lost on me, either, that I should be pleased he wasn't using his X-ray vision on me today, but that I wasn't.

  I rapped the table with a sugar packet, aggravated with us both. "What's up? Worried your investigator will find you?"

  "Jakes?" He made a face. All right, so that wasn't it.

  "Worried about wasting your time today? You have somewhere else to be? Maybe you don't want to hang out."

  "Sure I do." His eyes darted to the sugar packet, back to the window.

  "Worried about letting me guide us through Rome? How about we hit a few antiques shops first?"

  "What?"

  I sighed--"C'mon"--and prodded him off his stool. "Let's go."

  He perked up a little in the shops. One, spanned with brick columns and arches, looked like an extreme makeover of a former aqueduct. Gilded frames held tight to paintings hung on columns; and tables of all shapes and va
rieties were home to small vases, books, miniature statues, and silver pieces. There were wood-framed couches, children's rockers and large dressers, standing mirrors and lamps. He was lost to it all, gathering finds and arranging to have them sent to Betheny. He came back to reality eventually, seemed to notice my twitchy legs and me.

  "Sorry," he said. "This isn't exactly seeing Rome, is it?"

  "No, not really." I looked at him through the lattice framework of an old folding screen. "But I have a cure for that, if you trust me." He was quiet for so long that I thought I'd have to repeat myself again.

  "Noel?"

  "Should've brought my sketchbook," he muttered, and I took a big step back from the screen. He shook his head. "All right, Maeve.

  Cure away."

  WITH THE MAP in my hand and a fledgling's confidence, I led us to Aventine Hill, where I was steeped in surreality. Here stood republican temples and kids tossing pebbles into the Tiber. I lay back in yellowing grass atop one of Rome's seven hearts and admired riverbank trees--pines with sprigs just on top, pointing toward the sky as if paying homage to a sun god. Helios? No, he was Greek.

  "Who's the Roman sun god?"

  Noel shrugged, his face framed in the long rays of some god whose name neither of us knew. Still distant. Still different. Maybe he'd understood my Italian diatribe after all.

  "Come on." I nudged him with my knee. "You're Garrick Wareham's grandson. Don't tell me he didn't make you take a class or two in mythology." I thought I remembered him studying this at Betheny U, along with ancient civilizations and art history. Thinking back to those days always took me too close to the edge, though. Too close to Before, to the days of plenty and daydreams and hope and wholeness, when I'd pretended to be Alvilda, daughter of the king of Gotland.

  "Why haven't you done this before?" Noel asked, and I felt momentarily disoriented. I ran my palm over the grass.

  "What?"

  "Come to Rome. Gone anywhere. You speak so many languages, so why not?"

  "I don't know." Clouds drifted in flocks today, and I found myself hunting for Alfred, the dragon who always eluded me. Maybe he only came out in Castine, for believers like Moira. "I guess I didn't want to go it alone."

  A pause, then: "Sol."

  "What's that?"

  "The Roman sun god."

  I stood along with him, though I felt a little thrown, like a pebble skipped over the Tiber. "Thanks."

  We walked in silence until I knew my sense of direction hadn't failed me again. There stood a fountain, a high bell tower, a church lined with archways and medieval windows. Santa Maria in Cosmedin. I knew cosmedin meant "decorative," ornamental like cosmetics, but Santa Maria looked rather plain to me.

  "Let's stop here," I said, trying for casual.

  "Where's here?"

  "Let's find out." I led us past a sophisticated nativity scene to a portico and columned walk. There, at the end of it, sat a large, round, ancient face. "Bocca della Verita," I said, like an introduction. "The Mouth of Truth."

  "Hmm," he said.

  I smiled. "Anyone who puts his hand into the mouth and tells a lie will have it snapped off by marble jaws."

  "Hmm."

  "Talkative today."

  "I never should've gotten out of bed this morning. I see that now."

  "So, go stick a hand in."

  "For what? I'm an open book."

  I clucked at him when he pocketed his hands.

  "That's mature."

  But it worked, because he stepped up to the mask, shot me a doleful look, then placed his hand inside the mouth. I wanted to know so much. Why was he ignoring his investigator? Why didn't he open that FedEx? Why had he stopped sending me postcards?

  "Why didn't you finish my painting?" I asked.

  "Your painting?"

  "The one in your studio. Why didn't you finish it?"

  His jaw slackened. His hand fell.

  "Hand in." Good heavenly Sol, I couldn't believe I'd asked about that. Still, now that I had, I would have my answer. I recalled the half-finished work, my frustration over finding it abandoned. "You're speechless."

  "Just about."

  "That's not an answer, you know."

  He hesitated. "I needed more material."

  "More paper? More paint?"

  "More knowledge."

  "What--"

  "Uh-uh." He withdrew his hand. "You've had two questions already. My turn." His smile expanded and drew up on one side--a man who knew the game now and wanted to play.

  The mask's hollow eyes and nostrils looked ominous, lined with the dark veins of time, but I put my hand inside the cold marble and waited.

  "How did you find that painting?"

  "I--uh ..." There was nothing more backward-of-brilliant than stumbling into your own trap.

  "Speechless?"

  I said it, fast. "I thought you were in your studio because of the light, so I went in and saw you weren't there, but everything was picked up so neat, and everything was off the walls, and I kind of freaked out and decided to mess things up a bit, to pretend like you were there, and so I took some paper down and started to paint, and after I filled one page, I turned to another, and that's when I saw it. Me. There I was."

  He stayed still as stone himself--probably because he couldn't process what I'd said or imagine the scene. Because it was so unlike me. I still didn't know why I'd done it.

  "The keris," I said. "The keris made me do it."

  "I thought you didn't believe in the keris."

  "I don't."

  He dragged a hand over his face. Maybe I'd finally confounded him. "Did you feel better?" he asked. "After?"

  "After what?"

  "After you'd played in the paint."

  "Yes." I pulled my hand from the mouth. "Now you."

  "But--"

  "That was three questions. You owe me one."

  He groaned, but put his hand inside the marble. "Interrogate away."

  I felt less concerned now, since I'd humiliated myself already, about delving into the personal. "Truth. Why have you been out of touch? Were you planning to stay in Europe forever?"

  He dipped his chin. "I haven't met my goal."

  His mother. I nodded. "You're no closer to finding her?"

  "Maybe."

  "That's not much of an answer."

  "It's the best I can give right now."

  "And what about Garrick?"

  "What about him?"

  "He doesn't know why you came here, does he?"

  "He didn't, no."

  I knew the answer this time but asked the question anyway. "He knows because of me and my big mouth over Thanksgiving, right? I didn't know you hadn't told him, Noel. I didn't think asking about her would--"

  "It's fine," he said. "I never asked you not to talk about it. You didn't know."

  Had Garrick made the investigation difficult? Maybe this was why Noel had been so remote. I was reconsidering asking about that unopened FedEx when he stepped back, his eyes black beneath the shaded portico.

  "Your turn again," he said.

  What had started as a game of sorts had evolved into a battle. I needed a white flag. I put my hand inside the marble.

  "What are you afraid of?"

  "Pain," I answered without thinking, the word rising up and out from some inner wellspring of truth. I cringed, hating the implication of it: that I was weak, that I couldn't take a bruise or bump or cut. That wasn't truth. It wasn't that sort of pain. I closed my eyes, saw the water behind the door, and felt, for a second, what it would be like to be naked in the crosscurrent.

  "What kind of pain?"

  I would've been glad for a chance to take the answer back, refine it, if only it led to light.

  Tell him.

  "What should I say?" I asked.

  "The truth, Maeve."

  "The pain of regret." I shivered, exhausted. "Loneliness." My voice became a shadow of itself. Noel moved closer.

  "Who's Moira?"

  He might've
punched me.

  "Who's Moira?" he repeated.

  Truth.

  "My sister."

  "The sister you lost?"

  "Yes."

  I'd told him that much--that I'd had a sister once, but I'd said no more. I wouldn't linger in the past. He got that. It was like an unspoken deal between us, not to prod into those parts of one another's lives, the secret pains. His mother. My sister. A golden hush we'd shattered in minutes with mouths of truth.

  "You know her name. How?" This, I'd never shared.

  "You shouted it last night."

  The dream. The malformed bird. The bus. The little girl with the red hair. My hand slipped from the Mouth, landed against my thigh.

  "'The pain of regret.' Is Moira why you regret?" he asked, and I felt jerked under his magnifying glass against my will. "Is Moira why you haven't traveled, because you're going it alone, without her? Is Moira why you work all the time, why you won't let anyone in?"

  I clutched at my shirt, the thin cotton over my heart. "Stop saying her name."

  "I can't believe she'd want that for her sister."

  "You didn't know her! You don't know what the hell you're talking about!" I struck his chest--once, twice. But instead of pushing me off, he touched my face. My hands calmed as reflexively as they'd knotted. "I'm sorry." Mortified.

  "It's all right, Maeve." His eyes softened. "Thank you."

  "Thank me? For hitting you? I'm sorry I hit you, I didn't mean to hit you, I was just, just--"

  "Thanks for giving me a little more material."

  I understood then why he hadn't finished the painting, just how much of myself I'd withheld. But that was then. Truth had torn something open in me and more of it surged out.

  "I missed you, Noel. So much."

  He winced, and it was like his eyes cleared of some horrible cataract. He looked at me--really looked at me--and my Chinese Brother mouth smiled, my lungs filled completely for the first time in months. It was then, enfolded in his tight hug and with my face buried in his coat, when the angels began to sing. At least they sounded like angels.

  Noel and I stepped through the church entrance and inside a sanctuary lit with candles. There, atop a mosaic floor, stood a choir garbed in rich yellow robes. I thought about Sri Putra for the first time in hours, wondered if he could be up there, trying to tell me something in a song. But there was no sign of a short Javanese man or a pillbox hat.