Miserere

by Caren J. Werlinger

  It wasn’t until their eighth day on the river that they approached Richmond. The river traffic had been building steadily as the barges were diverted to the canal to get past waterfalls. Traffic slowed to the pace of the mules pulling the barges along the towpath, with regular stops at locks to raise or lower water levels. Captain Doolan told Orla that Richmond would be the biggest city the girls had ever seen. Even before they got to the actual outskirts, they could see mansions so grand they could never have imagined them before. Amidst the shouting of men on other boats and barges, the wharves of Richmond came into view. Looming over the river were huge brick warehouses and factories with black smoke churning from tall brick chimneys.

  The barge eased up to one of the wharves where it was moored by enormously thick ropes. Caitríona went to the livestock to soothe them as they grew agitated with all the commotion. Standing in between two of the horses, she looked up to see Orla being helped off the barge by Captain Doolan. Taking his offered arm, she accompanied him down the dock, and was soon obscured from view by the dockworkers.

  Caitríona was fuming by the time they returned to the barge a few hours later. Orla came to find her as the captain began shouting orders for them to shove off and get underway again, now carrying the last new cargo they would take on as they continued upriver to Scottsville, which was the closest the barge could take them to Lord Playfair’s plantation.

  “Caitríona –,” Orla began excitedly, but her sister turned her back. “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded.

  Caitríona whipped around, glaring at her. “You’re a traitor! That’s what’s the matter,” she said waspishly.

  “A traitor! And just how do you figure that?” Orla asked, getting angry herself.

  Caitríona pointed accusingly. “You went off, with him!”

  “The captain? He’s old enough to be our Da,” Orla sputtered. “He was a gentleman.”

  Caitríona knew she should stop – how many times had Mam told her she let her temper run away with her tongue? – but she heard herself saying, “Well, he wasn’t looking at you like a daughter! And you… going off with him pretty as you please.”

  Orla’s face reflected her anger as two vivid patches of scarlet rose in her cheeks, making her look as if she had been slapped. “That’s a horrible thing to say!” she retorted as her eyes filled with angry tears.

  Caitríona said nothing further, turning back to the horses and cattle as the barge resumed its slow way up the canal. Orla dropped a small paper-wrapped parcel on top of the water barrel kept near the enclosure. “Here’s the chocolate the captain bought for you.”

  When Caitríona turned around, Orla was gone.

  §§§

  “This is fun,” Will said as he dipped his paint brush back in the can.

  Abraham smiled. “You think so?”

  Now that the chimney was repaired, the exterior of the house was receiving a much-needed coat or two of paint. After conferring with Elizabeth, it was decided that the children could help with the exterior painting while she continued working inside.

  Abraham glanced down at Conn who was absent-mindedly running her brush over the same area repeatedly, apparently unaware that she was now wiping off more paint than she was applying. Squatting next to her, Abraham asked, “Connemara? Is there anything wrong?”

  Startled, Conn looked at him. For an instant, her eyes were troubled and he had the feeling there was something she wanted to say, but then the moment passed and she smiled. “I’m fine. Just daydreaming. Mom always says I could get lost in my daydreams.”

  Abraham nudged the paint can closer to her, and said, “Then you could probably use some paint on that brush.”

  Conn laughed and burned red.

  Abraham turned and paused. “I think you have a visitor.”

  She followed his gaze and saw Jed standing at the curve of the drive where it emerged from the woods.

  “Hi,” she called out.

  “Hi,” Jed said uncertainly.

  “Come on up,” she invited.

  “We’re helping Mr. Greene paint,” Will said, stating the obvious as he had nearly as much paint on his elbows and hands as he did on his brush.

  “Good morning, Jedediah,” Abraham said congenially.

  “Mornin’, Ab –, I mean Mr. Greene,” Jed said shyly.

  Elizabeth appeared at the screen door, her auburn hair tied back in a ponytail, wiping her hands on a rag. “I thought I heard an unfamiliar voice,” she said, smiling. “You must be Jed.”

  “Yes’m,” Jed said, bobbing his head a little.

  “We’re about to break for lunch,” she said. “Can you join us?”

  Jed’s eyes registered his surprise. “Yes’m.”

  “All right, then. Everybody wash up and we’ll eat,” Elizabeth commanded.

  Jed followed Conn and Will into the bathroom, where they washed their faces and hands. In Jed’s case, this effected a rather more dramatic change than it did in either Conn or Will, as several layers of dirt were washed down the drain as Jed rinsed the soap off.

  He followed the others to the table where Elizabeth was pouring a glass of milk for each of them.

  Jed looked around hesitantly as he waited for some signal as to what to do. He remained standing, mimicking Abraham, until Elizabeth was seated. Jed stared at her as if he had never seen a woman before.

  “I hope you like egg salad, Jed,” Elizabeth said as they all reached for the sandwiches piled high on a plate in the middle of the table.

  He picked up his sandwich and took a tentative bite. His eyes widened in delight at the taste. “Yes’m,” he said again as he tore off a huge bite. He glanced quickly at Abraham who gave a minute shake of his head, took a small bite of his sandwich and wiped his mouth with his napkin. Jed copied him and was therefore able to speak when Elizabeth asked him how old he was.

  “I’m near twelve,” he said. “In September.”

  “And who are your parents?” she asked.

  “My ma’s dead,” he said, pausing in his attack on the sandwich. “When I was five. It’s just me and my pa now. Sam, Samuel Pancake.”

  “I knew a Samuel Pancake,” Elizabeth mused. “He’s the right age to be your father.”

  “Connemara,” said Abraham, “what are you reading now?”

  “Robin Hood,” Conn answered brightly. She turned to Jed. “Have you ever read it?”

  Jed turned red and mumbled something indistinct.

  “What an excellent adventure,” Abraham said. “I think that was the first long book I ever read. Living in Sherwood Forest, archery contests, outsmarting the Sheriff of Nottingham – it certainly was exciting.”

  Will’s eyes got big. “Can you read it out loud?” he asked his sister. “I want to hear the story.”

  “Me, too,” Jed said before he could stop himself.

  Elizabeth hid a smile as Conn said, “Sure. We can read a little every day if you want.”

  After lunch, Jed stayed to help as they resumed painting. By the end of the afternoon, all the clapboards under the front porch had a glistening new coat of white paint, while Abraham put the finishing touches on the dark green paint on the shutters.

  “You three did an excellent job,” Elizabeth pronounced when she came out to the porch to inspect their work. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Greene?”

  “I do, indeed, Mrs. Mitchell,” said Abraham, as he began washing brushes in a bucket of turpentine.

  “Can you stay to dinner, Jed?” Elizabeth invited.

  “No, ma’am,” Jed said politely. “I gotta get home.” He hesitated as he descended the porch steps. “Can I come back tomorrow? To help paint?”

  “Course you can,” Conn said.

  “All right,” Jed grinned. “See y’all tomorrow.”

  Abraham watched him run down the drive and said, “That boy would thrive under a little kindness.”

  “What do you mean?” Conn asked.

  “Well, after his mother died, his father bega
n drinking,” Abraham explained. “Jedediah just hasn’t had contact with many people. Especially good people.” He glanced at Conn and added, “That’s what I meant when I said he could use a friend like you, Connemara. And you, William.”

  Will beamed.

  “Well,” Abraham said, straightening up as he wiped the clean brushes dry on a rag, “I shall see you all on the morrow.”

  “‘Parting is such sweet sorrow,’” Conn quoted.

  Abraham laughed, his face twisting grotesquely as his scar pulled. “Exactly.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Conn woke early. She lay in bed listening to the plaintive call of a mourning dove perched in the elm tree outside her open window. Finally, a night with no dreams. Sleepily, she lay there enjoying the snuggly warmth of her covers despite the cool breeze coming through the screen when, suddenly, she remembered. She was eleven today! She stretched, shivering in anticipation. Slipping quietly out of bed, she dressed and crept out of the house before anyone else was up.

  She headed past the barn, and through the pasture beyond to a knoll where she had discovered the most marvelous tree. It was an oak that, early in its life, had somehow split into three divisions sprouting from the main trunk so that there was now a flattened area nearly large enough to lie down in. It was the perfect place to read or think. This morning, she settled with her back against one of the smaller trunks. She could just see the roof of the house from here.

  With the ivy gone and fresh paint going up and no more broken windows, the house didn’t look haunted and neglected any longer. She giggled to herself, remembering that it was haunted, or at least she thought maybe it was. She still wasn’t sure if her conversation with Caitríona had been real or not. If there was a ghost in the house, she hadn’t reappeared since that night.

  Sighing, she looked around and thought about how much she loved it here, and immediately felt guilty. It had been nearly a year since Daddy was deployed, but now… with him being MIA… Sometimes, when she was laughing or having fun, she would stop suddenly and remember. It felt wrong somehow to be enjoying herself, to be happy here, when he was out there….

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting in her tree, thinking about this when she noticed smoke coming from the kitchen stovepipe. Mom was up, getting breakfast. Conn climbed down from the tree and ambled back to the house. As she entered the kitchen from the back porch, her mother was standing stock still in the middle of the room, her face as white as the towel hanging over her shoulder.

  “Mom?” Conn asked, scared. “What’s the matter?”

  “Shhh.”

  Conn realized the radio was on and listened, too. The announcer was very somber, speaking of someone who’d been shot.

  “Who?” she asked.

  Elizabeth looked at her. “Robert Kennedy was shot last night. He died early this morning.”

  Conn’s eyes got big. “President Kennedy’s brother? But he’s the one –”

  She left the kitchen and went up to her room where she pulled an old shoebox out of the bottom drawer of her dresser. Elizabeth followed her upstairs and sat beside her on the bed, watching as Conn pulled her treasures out of the box: a feather from her parakeet who had died two years ago, a tarnished ring Mark had won at a shooting gallery at a county fair and given to Conn, school photos of each of her classes at Sandia. Folded at the bottom of the box were some newspaper clippings. Conn unfolded them.

  “The day before Daddy – the day Martin Luther King was killed, Robert Kennedy was supposed to give a speech in a colored section of Indianapolis. When he heard about what happened, he gave a different speech to tell the people the news because most of them didn’t know yet, and he asked them not to be filled with hate because he knew what it felt like to lose a family member. The papers said there were riots almost everywhere that night, but not in Indianapolis.” She handed the clippings to her mother.

  Elizabeth blinked back tears as she read. Turning to Conn, she looked at her daughter as if she had never seen her clearly before.

  Conn’s eyes searched her mother’s. “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “How can people hate so much? How can they do things like this?”

  “I don’t know, honey,” Elizabeth said, folding Conn in her arms and rocking her.

  “I don’t think we should do my birthday today,” Conn said, her voice muffled against her mother’s chest.

  “Nonsense.” Elizabeth held Conn by the shoulders and looked at her. “Especially today, we need to celebrate something good, and you are the best reason I can think of.”

  The rest of the day passed quietly, the atmosphere heavy with a sense of grief and foreboding. When Abraham arrived, they listened to the radio a bit longer as he hadn’t heard the news. Elizabeth turned the radio off when Jed arrived. He could see that they were distressed, but he didn’t know who Robert Kennedy was. Conn tried to explain, but, “He can’t understand,” she said to her mother and Abraham after lunch when Jed took his leave. “How do you make someone understand when he doesn’t know who the Kennedys or Martin Luther King were?” she asked in frustration.

  Abraham glanced at Elizabeth as Conn went back to her painting. “Has she always been like this, Mrs. Mitchell? I mean,” he added hastily as if he feared his question sounded insulting, “I don’t know too many children her age who would even know who King and Kennedy were, much less grasp the impact of their assassinations.”

  “I don’t know many adults who feel things as deeply as she does,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully, remembering the newspaper clippings Conn had cut out and saved. “And yes,” she sighed, “she has always been like this.”

  It was mid-afternoon when Elizabeth announced, “We’ve worked enough today. Time to celebrate. Let’s clean up.”

  She soon had Abraham firing up and tending the grill while Conn and Will were put to work shucking the early corn she’d been able to find.

  “It’s such a nice day,” she said, “how about we move the kitchen table and chairs outside and make it a picnic?”

  Before long, they were seated around the table under one of the elms, enjoying Conn’s birthday dinner. Conn had to grin when her mother lit the eleven candles stuck in the crust of a cherry pie while everyone sang.

  The sun dipped below the mountain ridge to the west as they finished their pie and ice cream. Elizabeth said, “Time for presents. Close your eyes.”

  Conn obeyed, and a moment later, she heard, “Okay, open them.”

  She opened her eyes to see her mother and Will holding a cane fishing rod with a reel and actual fishing line instead of string.

  “We couldn’t wrap it,” Will said, bouncing in his excitement.

  “Wow,” Conn breathed, taking the rod in her hands. “It’s beautiful.”

  She admired it for a few minutes, and then Elizabeth placed a small wrapped box on the table. “This is from Daddy,” she said as Conn took her seat again. “He left it for you… in case he couldn’t be here for your birthday.”

  Conn’s throat got tight and her eyes burned as she blinked fast. Her hands trembled a bit as she fumbled with the wrapping. Inside the box was a folded note lying on top of a smaller velvet box. She opened the note and, in her father’s handwriting, read, “For my favorite leprechaun. Love you forever and a day, Daddy.” She lifted out the little velvet box and opened the hinged lid to reveal a gold Celtic cross suspended on a fine gold chain.

  When Conn just sat there looking at it, Elizabeth asked, “Don’t you like it?”

  All Conn could do was nod. She closed the box gently without taking the cross out.

  Abraham broke the silence by clearing his throat softly as he slid a package wrapped in plain, brown paper across the table to Conn.

  “I thought we said no gifts,” Elizabeth said sternly.

  “Connemara did tell me that, Mrs. Mitchell,” Abraham hastened to explain. “But this is an old book I had as a student, and I thought she might enjoy reading it.”

  Conn waited for her mot
her to nod her consent before carefully pulling the crinkled brown paper away from a small leather-bound edition of Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha.

  “Gosh,” Conn murmured, leafing through the beautiful little book.

  “You read that, and we can discuss it,” Abraham said to her.

  “I will,” Conn said solemnly.

  Inside the house, the telephone rang.

  “You’d better answer it,” Elizabeth smiled. “It’s probably your grandparents.”

  Conn ran into the kitchen and answered. It was Grandma and Grandpa Mitchell who lived in Indiana, near Indianapolis. Conn talked to them for a few minutes, and then covered the receiver, calling out, “Mom, they want to talk to you.”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment, and muttered, “Better get it over with.”

  Conn helped Will and Abraham carry the remainder of the dishes in from the table, and then the chairs while they could hear Elizabeth saying, “We’re fine here, Mother… No, we have people nearby to help out… We miss you, too…”

  “We stopped by to see them on our way here from Sandia,” Conn explained to Abraham. “They wanted us to stay with them.”

  Abraham’s eyebrows raised a little. “Didn’t you want to stay with them?”

  Conn shrugged. “They’re really nice, but I think they would have driven Mom crazy.”

  Abraham smiled. “I think your mother likes her independence.”

  Conn grinned. “I think you’re right.”

  Elizabeth sighed as she hung up. “I think I talked them out of coming for a visit, but I’m not sure.”

  “I’d better be going,” said Abraham as he and Elizabeth carried the table back into the kitchen. “I can’t remember a nicer evening.”

  Outside, they could hear the sound of tires crunching on the drive. Mr. Walsh climbed out of his truck and was on the back porch, walking uninvited into the kitchen before he saw Abraham.

  “Well, Elizabeth, Abraham,” he said genially enough, but there was no amusement in his eyes as he spoke. “What are you doing here this time of the evening?”

  Elizabeth stepped forward. “Mr. Greene was our guest for dinner. What brings you out here, Mr. Walsh?”