The guests in the parlour were talking amongst themselves, and I was paying them no attention at all. So, naturally, I did not hear Abbaline, the first time she called my name. She seemed quite annoyed, by the time she came into the parlour to fetch me.
“Something as exciting as this,” she said, “and you don’t even bother to come when I call?”
I looked at her quizzically. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on. Hurry up.”
I sighed, and held the baby out to Myrne. “Take him, will you?”
Abbaline led me to the front entryway, where a group of people stood. I could not see most of them; for they were standing in shadow, hidden somewhat by a tall man in a black overcoat.
“Kate,” said Abbaline. “This is Jonathan Banks. He’s brought you a surprise.”
I thought I could make out three outlines in the darkness, one perhaps a child. I was very confused – until one of the figures stepped forward, into the light, to reveal herself.
She looked exactly as she had when I saw her last. There was not a hair on her head out of place. I felt myself falling, spinning down into an abyss of both everything and nothing, of both here and there. I would have rushed towards her, but it seemed that my feet were planted into the floor.
My eyes could only fix upon her face, widening and widening till they could widen no more, there above my stationary lips. I wanted to ask, where have you been? I wanted to ask, how did you find me? But I just stared.
It seemed so unreal.
She said nothing, either – but was, unlike me, able to move. When she embraced me, and I inhaled the full scent of her (which was the same as ever), I felt myself choke. I looked over her shoulder, through blurry eyes, at the remainder of the arrivals. I saw their faces, and I registered their identities, but I could not bring myself to care about them just yet.
When I heard Myrne’s voice behind me, it was almost like being pulled back into reality from an incredibly vivid dreamscape. The only difference was, even as I heard Myrne’s voice in my ears, I still felt Thea’s arms around me.
“Joseph was crying, I think he wants –” He stopped. “What’s going on?”
I turned my head to look at him. He stood there, the baby cradled in his arms, looking completely lost. He did not know who stood before him, and even if I were to say her name, he still would not know. I had never told him about her. I had never talked about my previous life, and he had never talked about his. It was something of an unspoken pact.
After December, in order just to breathe, I had had to live without Thea in the foreground of my mind. I had prepared myself never to see her again; I had braced myself for that fate.
Which made her seem now all the more illusory.
I turned my face to the right, and found her only inches away. My heart was full to bursting, and there was no way that I could ever manage to speak all of the words with which it was teeming.
“I have so much to tell you,” I said simply, swallowing back the thickness and tears which were come to render my voice inoperable.
I heard Joseph cry, and forced myself to break away, so that I could take him from Myrne. He quieted in my arms, his eyes roving all around.
I looked at Jonathan Banks, who was standing with Abbaline off to the side. I was acquainted with him, and had seen him several times before; but never had I been so grateful for his presence. The last two visitors stood close together, the older one’s hands on the younger one’s shoulders.
Kerry and Mary-Anne Warner.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Myrne asked again, scratching his head.
“Quiet, you,” said Abbaline.
He rubbed his forehead. “I’m so confused.”
Thea’s attention was focused on Joseph. She stared at him for several long moments before looking at me; and, of course, I knew exactly what she was thinking.
“You know,” Abbaline said finally, “I’m all for heartfelt moments, but a few introductions wouldn’t hurt.”
I shook myself, and cleared my throat, gesturing to Myrne. “This is Matthew Myrne. Myrne, this is Thea, and Kerry – and the little girl is Mary-Anne.”
I looked down at the baby, who had grown tired of observing and was now resting his head against my shoulder. “This is Joseph,” I said.
“Can I see him?” Mary-Anne asked, coming a little closer to me.
“Shhh, Mary,” Kerry said.
“No, it’s all right.” I waved Myrne forward, and gave him the baby. “Go into the kitchen with Mary-Anne, would you? Get her something to drink.”
“All right,” he said. “But I still don’t know who any of these people are.”
“I already told you.”
He sighed, but then smiled at Mary-Anne, and told her to follow him. Kerry went, too.
“Banks and I will be in the parlour,” said Abbaline. “I think that I’ve kept everyone waiting long enough.”
Thea and I stood a little apart, looking at each other as if for the first time.
“I don’t even know what to say,” she said.
“You’re not the only one.”
“It’s been almost two years. All I want, is to just get on where we left off –
but . . .”
It seemed that she had been entertaining certain ideas of her own, on her way to Shealittle Road. I felt that they were not quite matching up to the things she saw before her. Yet it was as hard for her to think in this way, I knew, as it was for me; and I was sure that neither of us could understand our hesitation. It stemmed, I believe, from a mutual doubt of the other’s wholeheartedness.
“But what?” I asked finally.
“It seems that you’ve already got on with something new.”
I did not understand at first – but after a little, found myself laughing. “Why does everyone say that?” I asked, one part amused and the other annoyed.
She narrowed her eyes. “Say what?”
“What you were thinking! That is my baby, but he’s not Myrne’s.”
“Whose is he?” she asked quietly.
“No one important.”
“I don’t follow, Katie.”
“Trust that I’ll explain everything – but not right now.”
She looked hesitant, nervous.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Do you – I mean . . .” She shook her head, quite hard enough to scramble her brains. “Do you love someone else?”
“Why? Because of Joseph?”
“I don’t mean to sound stereotypical – but that is how babies are made.”
I took a deep breath. “If I hadn’t missed you so much, Thea, I’d slap you across the face.”
She looked just as bewildered as before.
“I’ll explain that, too. Would you please just come here? I’ve been waiting for you for two years.”
***
With the hum of voices in my ears, I could barely think. I took Thea’s hand, and led her up the stairs to my bedroom, closing the door behind us on all the sound below. We stood for what might have been ten minutes, and then sat down on the bed for what may very well have been half an hour, before either of us said anything.
As it turned out, Thea was the first to speak. There I was with so much to say, with so much to explain, and it was she who spoke first.
“I found a circular,” she said, “crumpled up in a gutter. I guess it was about a year old. I didn’t know anything about it at first – only that it had your name on it, and Abbaline Elson’s. I had heard her name countless times, and figured that it shouldn’t be too very hard to find someone, who knew where I might find her. And, sure enough, I eventually came across Jonathan Banks. I gather that only a select few people know about this house – but he led me here without hesitation.” She looked up at me. “I’m told I have an honest face.”
“Have they been with you all this time?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Kerry and Mary-Anne.”
>
“Oh. Well – yes, for the most part.”
“Where did you go?” I asked, hoping that she would not say what I expected her to.
She looked down at her hands. “We weren’t held captive for very long. After they brought us out of the house, they took us straight to a port on the seashore. We were locked in a boat for a week, before we set sail.”
She looked at me and smiled – a sad, sort of chilly smile. “Seasickness,” she said. “I told one of them, the one who was watching us, that I had seasickness. He wasn’t very bright, and he didn’t even question letting me up. Naturally, he came with me, which left Kerry and Mary-Anne unattended. Kerry and I had talked about it beforehand, and she knew what to do. While I was on deck, leaning over the rail and pretending to lose my stomach, she snuck up behind the first soldier, and stole the gun right off his belt. She shot him before he could get it back.”
“What good did that do?” I asked, trying to lose at least a little of the overwhelming emotion of the moment in the details of the story. “Weren’t there others?”
She shook her head. “Believe it or not, there were only two soldiers – the crew being that of the fishing boat we were on. When the second soldier heard the gunshot, he came running – but we shot him, too. Turns out that the crew had already been paid to sail to England, so they had no complaints about turning back the way we came.”
She took a rattling breath. “I don’t know why they left us alive. I can only assume it was our sex, and our ages – though I was sure that they would kill Mary-Anne, her being only six at the time. I suppose that the why doesn’t matter, though.”
“And after that?” I asked, still not having had my question answered.
“After that, I went back home. I hoped that, if you were all right, you would have gone there too.” Her eyes met mine. “They took us out of the house, while the others were still alive. I didn’t know whether or not you had come back, between that time and the time we left. I hoped that you hadn’t, I prayed and I prayed, but I had no way of knowing. So, when we got back to shore, I went straight home. I waited there for over a month, but you never came. I knew that you were either dead –” (her throat worked visibly, and her eyes began to shine with old tears) “– or out there somewhere where I just couldn’t see you. I didn’t want to believe that you were gone – so I went looking for you.”
That was exactly the thing, exactly the thing! that I had not wanted her to say. She had gone home, had waited there; but I had been so convinced of her fate, or at least of her undeniable distance, that I had not even thought to do the same. I had been alone all this time, because I was so stupid. How could I have never thought to go back? How could I have been so . . . so . . .
There were no words to describe my angst.
All the things that would never have happened, if only I had gone back! I would never have had the baby. I would not be walking constantly about, with a small child in my arms, worrying about whether he was hungry, or cold, or needed to be changed . . .
No. I loved him. I had promised him that I would be here always.
Had I meant it, though? I was beginning to suspect that I had only clung to him, because he was all that was there. There was Myrne, and there was Joseph. I had made them the two constants in my life, the two things that all else revolved around.
Before Myrne, it had been Tyler. Before Tyler, it had been Thea. Oh, but even after that misery, it had always been her! In my mind; in my heart; in my dreams. If she had not been taken away, would any of it have been the same? I even tried to convince myself that Tyler would not have died; for his attention would not have been divided between myself and Abbaline; and he would have fought valiantly beside her, and escaped with her, to a place where they would have lived happily all the rest of their lives.
It was all I could do not to fling myself down upon the floor, and scream of the injustice till I had melded with the boards, to become forever a part of them.
“In my heart of hearts,” said Thea, “I didn’t really think I’d find you. All I knew, was that I couldn’t stay home without you. I tried, but I just couldn’t. Everything I looked at, everything I touched, it was just –” She looked away, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “Kerry wrote to a neighbour, trying to figure out what had happened on Marcker Street. She was devastated, when they wrote back. So we just made our way, never quite sure what we were doing – only ever aware of the things that we couldn’t do.”
I was quiet for a moment, lost in thought, not even thinking that Thea was still expecting to hear my side of the story.
“Katie,” she said quietly, shaking me slowly from my reverie.
I looked at her, and I knew that I must repeat, all those things which I had sworn never to say again. I thought that I had moved past them; I thought that I had thrown them away. But oh, to re-live them all over again! It was simply too much.
“It’s not going to be easy for me to say all this,” I told her. “Just be patient with me.”
She nodded.
“Well, you can tell Kerry that her family was buried with dignity.” True this was, for the most part; and I omitted the flimsy, ugly state of the coffins. “I stayed for the funeral . . .”
***
Thea stared at me, her face pale, and her eyes dark. “I’m sorry, Katie,” she said. “I’m so sorry for what I said, about Joseph.”
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”
“But I should have known better than to . . .”
“Please, Thea – please don’t.”
“How can I not? Everything you . . .” She stopped, and reached into her pocket for a handkerchief. “And all that time I was only sitting somewhere, right as rain, not a thing wrong with me, bored most of the time . . .”
“Please don’t,” I repeated. “Being angry won’t make it go away. What happened – well, it happened, and there’s nothing either you or I can do.”
My words did not quell her tears. “I just don’t – I just don’t know what to do with this!” she sobbed.
I shrugged, and offered her a smile. “At least we’re here now. And, if you promise that you won’t go anywhere else, I think I’ll be fine.”
She threw her arms around me, crying into my shoulder. I had been trying to keep a brave face; but as soon as that warm wetness began to fall down upon my neck, my strings (wound so tight for so long) began coming undone.
“You don’t know how much I missed you,” she said. “Sometimes I got so sad that I’d just cry all night, until the sun came up and my eyes were dry as cotton. Sometimes I got so mad that I just screamed and screamed, until I got so tired that I fell asleep right on the ground.” She held me tight. “You don’t know how much I missed you.”
I looked down into her face, wiping some of her tears away with my thumb. “Probably just as much as I missed you.”
I was so busy with the savouring of this moment of perfection, I almost yelped when a knock came at the door.
“What?” I said loudly.
“It’s just me,” said Myrne. “Joseph wants you. Can I come in?”
I sat up straight, and dried my face. “Come on, then.”
Myrne came in with the baby, whose face was red from crying. I had not even heard him.
Myrne looked at Thea, and then at me. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but he was screaming his head off. I tried to bring him back downstairs, thought he might like to see the people again, but he just caused a ruckus. Abbaline ended up hollering at me, which is really nothing new, but he’s driving me crazy just the same.”
He held Joseph out to me, and I cradled him against my shoulder. He snuggled up under my chin, squeezing a fistful of my dress in his tiny hand.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “Did you miss your ma?”
“Do you want me to take him back?” Myrne asked. “I don’t know how well it will go over, but I’ll give it a try.”
“No, it’s all right. He’s just tired. You go on to bed.”
/>
“Well, all right. You know where I am.”
“That I do.”
And off he went.
Immediately, I felt Thea’s eyes upon me. Upon Joseph.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just so strange, seeing you with him. Do you know what I mean?”
“Of course I do. I feel that way myself sometimes.” Joseph began to fidget, and I rubbed his back to make him still. “I never thought I would have a baby! But he’s here, and I . . .”
“You what?”
“I love him,” I said.
I said it, and I meant it. The truth of the words produced a warm sensation in the pit of my stomach, which made me smile as I was lying down to sleep. I situated Joseph in between me and Thea, then lay back on the pillows and reached for her hand.
“Do you want me to close the curtains?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” I said, wondering if I should tell her about that man in his chair. I was not quite sure how to explain it, though – so I decided to wait till he came. Perhaps he would not even wake her?
I lay long awake, waiting for him to come. But though I waited and waited, and watched and watched that ring of moonlight just beneath the window, where his chair should have already been, nothing ever came of it. I pressed Thea’s hand (though she did not feel it through her sleep), and breathed a sigh of relief. I was awfully glad, for I think I should mention, that I had been becoming more and more afraid that that man might try to take Joseph. Surely someday soon, he would have leapt from his chair, grabbed him up, and then dashed off into the shadows – like an unaccountable thief in the night.
But all that night, that man did not come to sit in his chair beneath the window. He came not that night, or (much to my extended happiness) any other night thereafter.
Chapter 41
The next morning, I woke to an incredibly bright ray of sunlight shining directly in my face. I had not been awake five minutes, when a knock came at the door.
“Who’s that?” Thea mumbled, obviously having already forgotten about Myrne.
An Irish Heart Page 40