by Jan Karon
An encounter with Bella was right up there with having your face slapped 'til your jaws rattled. Perhaps Anna had told Bella of their talk in the fishing hut. Maybe she knew Liam had confided his own concerns. It hardly mattered. Bella Flaherty was fenced by a thicket of nettles; he wouldn't invite her sting again. And no way would he stick his head in the kitchen and order a pot of tea, much less try to ring Dooley.
He walked up to the library, scanned the bookshelves; Fintan O'Donnell's long dissertation had put him off the notion of reading.
Rain oiled the windows, obscuring every view. He examined the sepia photographs, searched a group shot. Did Liam resemble any of these men? He squinted at a tall fellow in the back row, eyed the angular face. But why waste time on nonsense? Did he, Timothy, look like his tall, exceedingly handsome father? Of course not--he was the near-image of his portly, balding Grandpa Kavanagh.
He paced the room. He wasn't good at having nothing to do, and having nothing to do for days on end was losing its luster. Whatever zeal he'd entertained for memorizing verse had definitely waned.
'Reverend?'
'Anna!' He was glad for the sight of her attentive face; even her clogs were consoling.
'Was she rude to you?'
He smiled.
'I'm sorry.'
'It's all right.'
'She's in very bad sorts, something gnaws at her dreadfully. I always believe it's my fault, that if I only knew how, I could make things better.'
'I understand the feeling.'
'She says she's suffocating from the remoteness of the place, and no one about under forty--an ancient age to her. She told me this morning there was someone who would have taken her away, but it's impossible now.'
'Jack Slade?' He hadn't meant to say that, not at all.
She blanched, offended. 'I have no such evidence.'
No mother would want such evidence--he had overstepped.
She saw that she had put him off. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'Broughadoon's endless refrain.'
'I'm sorry I asked.' In truth, he could dig a hole and crawl in it. But three apologies in the span of a few seconds? What was there to do but laugh a little?--and so they did.
'The rain puts an end to the roses for a time,' she said. 'And the lavender hates it, of course.'
'There's a price to be paid for being green,' he said, making small talk.
'We've had a postcard from Moira. Hired cars are too dear in Positano, so she's getting about on a Vespa.'
'Holy smoke.'
'Ti sei bevuto il cervello is her war cry, she says, to Italian drivers.'
'Meaning?'
'Loosely translated, Have you swallowed your brain?'
They had a small chuckle. 'Anything at all from the Garda?'
His question put the instant worried look on her face. 'They can find nothing to go on, they say. I don't understand ...' She pulled forth a scrap, gave him an innkeeperish smile.
'Well, then,' he said, prepared to hurry off.
'The dining room must be lonely,' she said, 'without the anglers. Will you join us in the kitchen this evening for supper? Dr. Feeney will be here for his house call, you know, and Seamus is with us. It's our family night; we do it each month.'
Hadn't she said innkeepers are ever forced into the society of guests? Perhaps he should decline. And yet, he wanted to join them in the kitchen. 'Unless you hear back from us, we accept with pleasure.'
'Grand!' She took a deep breath and drew herself up and smiled her old smile, revealing a healthy store of what his mother called 'milk-fed' white teeth.
'I'd like to take a pot of tea up to Cynthia,' he said. 'If that's convenient.'
'I just gave a knock to deliver your laundry, but no answer. I looked in and she's sleeping. Shall I carry it up?'
'No, no, I'll take it up in a bit. No hurry.' He would have mentioned Cynthia's loss of sleep from the pestering ankle, but Anna would have said she was sorry and off they'd go on a rabbit chase.
She seemed hesitant, smoothed her apron. 'You said you would tell me about Dooley, how things . . . went along for you.'
She glanced at her watch. 'I've a few minutes off the clock. Would this . . . be a good time?'
'A very good time,' It gave a small pleasure to be asked--he needed the work.
'If it isn't asking too much,' she said.
'Not at all. I like to talk about Dooley.'
Her green eyes were luminous. 'Please come, then.'
They turned left before the dining room, then right, and proceeded along a narrow hall with a bank of windows. The close passageway smelled of something cooking on the red Aga.
'Smells good,' he said.
'Bella's cooking this evening. Italian is her favorite cuisine since she was little.'
A blue door then, which she opened with shy pleasure.
'My Ibiza,' she said. 'Please go in and make yourself comfortable, I'll only be a moment.'
He stepped into the room, heard her clogs sounding along the passageway.
He looked at the tall windows clouded by rain, at images pinned to the wall, of gardens, flowers, reproductions of paintings--one by Cecil Kennedy, whom he admired. He searched for the legendary ladybug that appeared in all of Kennedy's remarkable paintings of flowers, and there it was, of course.
On a long worktable, trowels, pruners, gloves, clay pots stacked by size--the usual detritus of the earnest green thumb. Above the table, pencil sketches tacked to a corkboard. Garden designs. He looked at a large sketch in which islands of space were identified in block letters:
LODGE. KITCHEN GARDEN. LANE GARDENS. HIDDEN GARDEN. BLUEBELL WALK. ORCHARD. MASS ROCK--the elements tied together by a winding pathway.
Facing the windows at the end of the room, an artists' easel and a high stool. At the end of the table, a jumble of paint tubes, brushes in a Chinese vase, a smeared palette, a tole pitcher filled with roses. A bloom gave way as he stood looking; petals fell silent as nuns to the stone floor.
She came in with a tea tray and set it on the table. 'There!' she said, slightly out of breath.
'I can see why all of Sligo wishes to visit Ibiza.'
''t is a great clutter, I'm afraid.'
'That's its charm.' He felt happy in some new way. 'I didn't know you're an artist.'
'I'm not, really. Just trying to get the hang of it, but there's never enough time.'
She poured two cups of tea, handed one to him. 'No one comes here but myself, and that all too rarely, so I have but the one chair--like your Mr. Thoreau. Please sit; I'll bring my stool.'
She picked it up and brought it over and was perched on it before he could set his cup down and give a hand.
'I was after converting it to a guest room,' she said. 'We could use it in the busy season--but Liam won't allow it.'
'Good fellow,' he said, taking the armchair.
'So please tell me, Reverend . . .' She looked suddenly worn. 'How did you do it?'
'With prayer. A lot of prayer.' He sat back in the chair, inhaled the fragrance of the steaming tea. 'With patience, too, of course--but not enough. As for love, I had no way of knowing how to love a wounded boy--perhaps because I had been a wounded boy myself, I don't know.
'We think of love as warm and cozy, and that's certainly part of it. But it was hard to muster those feelings toward someone who vented his lifelong rage on me. I felt pretty sorry for myself, sometimes.'
'Yes,' she said. 'Yes.' Her hair was old copper in the rain-washed light.
'It's not the sort of thing romantics wish to hear, but I found that in the end, love must be a kind of discipline. If we love only with our feelings, we're sunk--we may feel love one day and something quite other the next. Soon after he came to live with me--he was eleven years old at the time--I realized I must learn to love with my will, not my feelings. I had to love him when he threw his shoe at the wall and cussed my dog, love him when he called me names I won't repeat, love him when he refused to eat what I'd cooked after celebrating and preachi
ng at three Sunday services . . . you get the idea.'
She fixed him in her steady gaze.
'And so I enjoyed the warm feelings, the stuff of the heart, when it was present between us, as it sometimes was, even in the beginning. And when it wasn't, there was the will to love him, something like . . . a generator kicking in, a backup.
'I learned over a long period of trial and error to see in him what God made him to be. Wounded people use a lot of smoke and mirrors, they thrust the bitterness and rage out there like a shield. Then it becomes their banner, and finally, their weapon. But I stopped falling for the bitterness and rage. I didn't stop knowing it was there--and there for a very good reason--but I stopped taking the bullet for it. With God's help, I was able to start seeing through the smoke. I saw how bright he was, like your Bella, how talented, and how possible it was for him to triumph over so much that hounded him.'
He took a sip of tea, and realized he was trembling.
'To put a fine point to it, Anna--I stopped praying for God to change Dooley; I asked God to change me--to give me his eyes to see into the spirit of this exceptional broken boy.
'I started talking to Dooley as if he were bright and industrious and savvy and trustworthy. I believed it was already real, that he was already whole and able to love. And all I can say is--it began to work . . . for both of us.
'One day he was sent home from school for beating up a classmate. He'd given him a good drubbing. Turns out, he did it because the boy called me a nerd.' He laughed; he loved this story. 'Imagine that. I felt twelve feet tall. The little guy had gone to bat for me; it was a bloody miracle. Did I send him to bed with no supper, ground him for a week? No. Right or wrong, I thanked him. I was never so touched.'
'How good,' she said, laughing a little, weeping a little. 'How good.'
'There's no quick fix, Anna. It's all in increments, the same way our roses grow. Winning someone who's never won anything themselves--it's a long road, and we don't always get it right--not by a long shot.
'When Dooley came to me, he had the hunched look of an old man, his face was set like flint. I remember how much I wanted to hear him laugh. Just getting a laugh out of the little guy would have been right up there with God smiting a rock and water gushing forth. And, of course, one day he did laugh. And then another day, and another. Healing came as little drops of water, and never the mighty ocean when you need it, Anna.
'There's just no way to deal with their suffering, except through love. And there was no way I could gouge that kind of love out of my own selfish hide without the help of God.
'You're Bella's mother, and that's a great power in itself. I have to believe she loves you very much. Trust that, believe that, as hard as it is to believe right now. Act as if it were true, it can change things.'
'Her father speaks bitterly of me,' she said. 'His image of me seems engraved forever on her heart. Dooley's parents--what were they like?'
'His mother and father were both alcoholics. She has since recovered; Clyde hasn't--I've had a couple of run-ins with Clyde. He left the family before the last child was born. In any case, Dooley essentially helped raise the kids until his mother gave them away.'
'Gave them away?'
'Four out of five. They're together again now after many years.'
She closed her eyes. 'There's a sense in which I gave Bella away when I let her go.'
'Yes.'
'She expects me to give her up again, doesn't she?'
'I think she wants you to know she'll give you up, first.'
She covered her face with her apron and wept, silent.
'I know time is what you have very little of, Anna. But maybe you could look for a way to spend time with her. I kept far too busy as a working priest; it was up hill and down dale for everyone else, but I could easily find an excuse to let Dooley shift for himself. I remember when God spoke to my heart about this--about how he shows his love by being as near to us as our very breath. Bella says she's lonely here--that's something to listen to. I feel your time would be the greatest gift you could give her.'
'How will I reach her, what shall I do to get through her terrible coldness?'
'Continue going in to her through her music, as you did the other evening with the concert. Go in where there's common ground. Do whatever you can, Anna, to find common ground, and if you do nothing more, forgive her and pray for her. Whenever she lashes out, whenever she draws away, pray and forgive, forgive and pray.'
'Is it too late?' She wept openly now.
'It's never too late, please believe this. There's a scripture in the Book of Joel--I will restore unto you the days the locusts have eaten. He's fully able to do it, and waiting for you to ask.'
'What about . . . Jack Slade?'
'That's in the past. If I were you, I'd put it out of your mind.'
'It was on your mind . . .'
'But it doesn't matter now. All that matters is loving her back to you.'
'I can never thank you enough.'
'Please don't try, I beg you. Thank him.'
She wiped her eyes, looked at her watch. 'Forgive me, I must unload the dishwashers and get the bread in the oven. Maureen's off with her old aunt for a bit and I'm quite behind. One more thing, if you would. How old is Dooley now? What's become of him?'
'He's twenty-one, and recently took my name as his own. Dooley Kav'na.' He swallowed hard. 'A rising sophomore at the University of Georgia. He wants to be a vet, and circumstances have conspired to give him his own practice when he finishes school. A parishioner left him a small fortune. It covers his education and transportation, and leaves something to share with his brothers and little sister. He handles it pretty well. A good fellow, my son.'
'I'm glad for you.'
'It may look impossible for you and Bella, but it isn't. Ask God's help. He wants to help--it's the way he's wired.'
She slipped off the stool and he stood and set his cup on the table.
'Will you pray for us, for all of us?' she asked.
He took her hand. 'I do and I will,' he said.
He was going up with the tea when the idea struck. He would build such a room for Cynthia, who had for years plied her trade in a minuscule space scarcely larger than her drawing board. He was shamed that his study, in which he hadn't actually studied in months, was the largest room in the house. And all that to satisfy what?--a need to appear busy in retirement? He was dazzled by the suddenness of such thinking, an epiphany.
His step was lighter on the stairs. The room would adjoin his study and have its own view of Baxter Park. The money would come from his pocket, not hers, though owing to their early agreement of not spending large amounts unless consulting the other, he'd have to get her John Hancock. He could see the room clearly: She was bent over her worktable in the southwest corner, the air smelling of sawn wood, the walls lined with her work.
He couldn't wait to tell her everything.
Twenty-four
'What is it with Mother?' Liam asked Feeney. 'You finally talked her into doin' tests, Anna says.'
'The lab report came back this afternoon, which is why I was late getting here. I was up to Catharmore first.'
'And?'
'Told her what will be no news to any of us--her liver will be her death unless she stops the drinking. She didn't receive it well, of course.'
'Surprise, surprise,' said Liam. 'What about Paddy? Does he know?'
'He does.' Feeney rested his fork. 'On a more positive note, your mother tells me she wants to live.'
'I can't imagine why, seein' she's so in love with dyin'.'
Anna looked his way, then lowered her eyes. This was family night, all right.
Cynthia enjoyed such dynamics, as long as they were someone else's. He wondered how she was getting on with dinner and the telly Anna had rolled in for the remainder of their stay. He had been sent off quite happily to the Conor table, with instructions to 'watch what you put in your mouth.'
'So the question,' said Liam,
'is will she stop th' drinkin'?'
''t will be difficult, I grant you. Nausea, tremors, hallucinations--even seizures, if it comes to that. Can't know. What we can know is'--the doctor grinned--'she will be exceedingly irritable.'
Laughter. Seamus smiled, discreet.
'You're full of surprises, Feeney. So how would she go about it?'
'There's the treatment option at a clinic, of course, but she won't have it, nor will Paddy agree to it. A costly and persecuting piece of business, in any case. She wants to do it at home.'
Liam forked a mouthful of ziti. 'I don't get it. How could she do it at home with none but Seamus to give a hand?'
'She'll need full-time nursing care ...'
'Of course! To be paid for with th' pot of gold at th' end of the rainbow.'
'. . . and I would supervise.'
Liam said something in Irish. 'Who was the bloke rolled a stone up th' hill only to have it roll back again?'
'Sisyphus,' said Anna.
'That's you, Doc. That'll have you comin' and goin'.'
The rain had stopped, though it rattled yet in the downspouts. The August evening was cool, the heat from the Aga welcome.
William had been talkative before dinner but was silent now. Bella picked at the ziti, stared at the wall, unseeing. Glancing up occasionally with a certain gratitude, Seamus ate without hurry.
Bella was the elephant in the room. No one attempted to penetrate the thicket of nettles, save for William. For William, the thicket parted as the Red Sea for Moses.
'Are ye learnin' a tune for your Daideo now?'
'Aye. 't will make you laugh.'
'We need a laugh in this world. Has it got th' strong beat to it?'
'For you, always th' strong beat.'
'You might get me dancin', so.'
'I'd give a packet of striped humbugs to see you dancin'.'
The platter was coming around again. His early training frowned on taking two of anything, and his diabetes demanded such a rigor. On the other hand, the ziti was outstanding and life notoriously short. He defied his upbringing, flouted his wife's instruction--and took seconds. Anna looked pleased