My Very Best Friend (50 page)

They buried the information. They minimalized, dismissed, intimidated, denied.

And the attacks continued.

In America and Ireland, the reports were coming in, too, mostly assaults against boys. The Church had refused to prosecute. They shuffled the criminals to a new parish. Ta-da! Here’s your new priest! He likes children, in a bad way, but we won’t tell you that.

Rapists can come in any form at all.

They may wear jeans.

They may wear tuxedos.

They may wear crosses.

There were no more bricks. No more slashed tires. No fires.

Neighbors and friends came by to visit with us and with Bridget.

Bridget was tired by the visits, but she loved them. She talked to our friends from school. Friends who had attended St. Cecilia’s with her came by. They knew of two more girls, in their class, who went through that same abuse.

Bridget told me later, wrapped in blankets on the back porch, the ocean in the distance, calm, that this was one of the happiest times of her life. “The happiest time was playing with you, Toran, and Pherson when we were kids, but this is a good time in my life, too.”

It broke my heart. This time of her life, ill, exhausted, feverish, coughing, weak and too thin, dying, was one of the best times?

“I’m here with you, Toran, and Pherson. I’m in Scotland. I’m clean, I’m sober. And people come all the time to visit, have a cup of tea, to laugh. I’m home, Charlotte. Scotland is my home. St. Ambrose is my home.” She reached for my hand. “You, Toran, Pherson, you’re my home.”

I am a crybaby now. It is fortunate that I know that tear ducts cannot run out of tears. They are replenished.

Actually, it didn’t help to know that at all.

You are my home.

I saw Carston Chit in town. We sat down for a cup of coffee.

“How did you get the letters from Bishop O’Callahan to Father Cruickshank?”

He cleared his throat, played with his horn-rimmed glasses. He’s a serious young man. “Perhaps I waited until the weekend, when few people are around and about at St. Cecilia’s. It may have been late at night when I made my visit, and then perhaps I might have stepped through an unlocked door and went through a few file cabinets at Angus’s former residence, which is no longer being used, has not been used for years, and is in the woods.”

“Ah. Perhaps you did.”

“Not strictly legal or following the rules of the ethics of reporting.”

“Was there anything, Carston, about Bridget, about where her baby went?”

“No, there wasn’t. None that I have ever found on her, or any other girl, during that time frame, and I have been there many times.” He cleared his throat, played with his glasses. “That information would have been, in a normal situation, at Our Lady of Peace. They don’t have it either, though.

“I believe, they believe, Cruickshank took it and burned it. There were a number of girls from St. Cecilia’s impregnated by him. He had things down to a science, how to intimidate the girls, who to choose, how to hide the evidence, as psychopathic serial rapists often do.”

“Thank you, Carston, for writing about Bridget. It’s freed her, I think. The truth is out there.”

He teared up. “She’s a lovely woman. Unfair, all of it.”

“Yes. Indeed it is.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Bridget said from the porch, rocking gently. Silver Cat sat on her lap and she stroked him as fall leaves drifted by.

“About what, Bridget?” Toran held my hand, our fingers linked.

“I want to leave a garden.”

“A garden?”

“Yes. A garden and a park for the children of St. Ambrose. So they can play and learn to love flowers and nature, like we did. Like the four of us.”

Pherson coughed. He does that when he gets upset and is trying not to cry.

“I want this to be my gift to the village,” Bridget said.

I was not surprised by her way of thinking, even though I would like to pack up many of the people of St. Ambrose on donkeys, have them ridden into caves and left in dark, bat-filled caverns. Bridget was a more compassionate person than me.

“But so many people here, Bridget,” Pherson said. “They were awful to you.”

“And that is the best reason of all for a garden. For them. For their children. Because I want to leave love and friendship. To everyone, even those who were awful, and paranoid, and wanted to lock me up. Maybe, when they’re there they’ll remember and be kinder to the next person. Can I use my money for a garden, Toran?” Bridget and Toran jointly inherited the land and home from their parents. Toran had put her share of the profits of the farm, from that land, into an account for her. It was substantial.

“I already phoned and talked to the mayor about that piece of land where the Zimmerman Factory burned down. The mayor said if we commit to putting some grass in, flower beds, he’ll get the city to donate the land.”

“You talked to the mayor already?” Toran asked.

“Yes. I called him.” She smiled. “And Chief Constable Ben Harris, who’s on the town council. And Stanley I and Stanley II, who are on the council, too, and Owena Woods and Rhona Skeates, also on the council.”

“They said yes?” Toran asked, grinning.

“Yes. So we’ll give it a go?”

Pherson gave a thumbs-up. He coughed again, added a sniffle.

“I love gardens,” I said. “It’s a small but healthy obsession. I’ll help.” I thought of the old Zimmerman Factory. That was a multiblock building and parking lot. The park would be enormous.

“It looks like we’re going to plant a garden, Bridget,” Toran said.

He is the most outstanding older brother in all the land.

Silver Cat meowed.

Toran and I had a tumble in his bed that evening. We took a break from all our worries and talked about a science article he had seen about neurons. It was fascinating. Then we set up a chess set on his bed and played a game. I wore my white negligee. He won.

“You are the most loyal person I have ever known, Char.” He kissed me.

“I think the same thing about you, King Toran.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“And I, you.” I was straddling him, and I bent down and cupped his face. “You’re a man in every sense of the word, Toran. You told me once that you are not a romantic man, that you didn’t have the words to be romantic, and that isn’t true. Romance isn’t words, although it can be, but for me, it’s what you do. When I see you smiling at me, that’s romantic. When you helped me with my mother’s garden, that’s romantic. When you helped me clean out my house, that’s romantic. When I see you reading to Bridget, propping her up on her pillows, that’s romantic. When I see you working hard on your farm because you value the land and your work, you value growing healthy food for people, that’s romantic. When I see you sticking up for people you love, that’s romantic. You, dear Toran”—I leaned down and kissed him—“are the most romantic man on the planet.”

I gave him another smackeroo. And a third.

“What also makes you romantic is how awesome you are in bed, Scottish warrior. Creative.”

“Ah, Charlotte, it is you who is creative in bed. All those love scenes you’ve written.” He pulled me down to him, and our kisses smiled at each other. “I have read all of your books and I would like to reenact each love scene. Many times.”

“It’s a plan.”

He picked me up and put me how he wanted me. He obviously had read my books.

“Bridget,” I told her the next morning as we lay in her bed together, drinking coffee, “draw the dream. Draw what we would have wanted as children if we were playing in a park.”

Silver Cat, sitting right by Bridget, stared at her, then licked her arm.

“I have the dream in my head.” Bridget had a sanded piece of wood on her lap that Pherson had cut for her so she could make large drawings. On the wood was a long, rectangular piece of paper and her colored pencils.

Her chin trembled. “When Legend comes here, if she does, I want her to see the park, to love it, to know that I wanted her here and that I thought of her when I designed it. I want her to know, despite all that I did that was wrong, I did this one thing right. This is my gift to her, to the children and people of the village. I left something right.”

“Oh, Bridget.” My chest was tight, my mouth wobbling. She had never stopped thinking of her daughter. Never stopped wanting to be with her, to be her mother. Never stopped loving Legend. I slung an arm around her, our heads together. “Start drawing before I turn into a bawling mess. No one likes a bawling mess.”

“Right. Keep it together, Charlotte. I certainly don’t want you dripping all over me.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Give me a tissue, then you can use it.”

“What? I have to use it second? How come you get it first?”

“Because.”

I handed her the tissue, she wiped her eyes and nose and gave it to me, with ceremony. “I present to you, the royal tissue.”

“That’s gross, Bridget.”

We laughed.

She drew.

She drew the dream for her daughter and for the children and village of St. Ambrose, a town with cobblestone streets and short doors, the ruins of a cathedral and castle, a rich history, and people who had been unbearably cruel and astonishingly gentle.

When she was done, Silver Cat walked up her legs, her stomach, her chest, and licked her nose.

That cat was Bridget’s cat, no question. It seemed like Silver Cat had simply been waiting for her to arrive.

Bridget’s design for the garden was, as usual, exquisite and detailed, a work of art.

She showed it to Toran, Pherson, and me after we had Chinese food, homemade by Stanley I and Stanley II, who came with their wives to have dinner with us, then left. The Stanleys and I discussed the future of nuclear energy, the joy of mathematical proofs, and the likelihood of extraterrestrial life coming to Scotland. (Slim. We decided that they would probably prefer Mexico, for the sun.)

Bridget had drawn garden rooms here and there, separated with dogwood bushes, a picket fence, pathways, trees, and shrubs. She drew islands of plants and trellises, two small fountains, and three birdbaths. She had chosen a red, blue, and yellow castle play structure, complete with a drawbridge, towers, tunnels, and a lookout point, specifically because of King Toran, Queen Bridget, King Pherson, and Queen Charlotte.

There were three sets of swings next to that, a merry-go-round, a fountain that spewed water straight up for kids to play in on hot days, an oversized gazebo, a rose garden with benches, grass everywhere to run on, a wide concrete path around the edge of the park for walkers and bike riders, and a statue.... I peered closer.

It was a statue of us. The four of us. Toran, Bridget, Pherson, and me. Clan TorBridgePherLotte. We were children, facing each other in a circle, our hands clasped together, crowns on our heads, capes flowing behind.

My chin wobbled, hot tears spilled out.

Pherson coughed, as usual when he’s overwhelmed, then buried his face in his hands. Bridget leaned over and stroked his head. “Baby, I’m sorry.”

Pherson, the baby, hugged her.

Toran’s eyes filled.

I put my fist out before we all embarrassed ourselves. “Clan TorBridgePherLotte!”

We fist bumped and said, “Clan TorBridgePherLotte powers, activate! Speed ahead and fight bravely.”

The plot of land where the Zimmerman Factory had been would be transformed. Eternally transformed, for all of the children of St. Ambrose to play in.

And for Bridget’s daughter.

Legend would know her mother loved her.

“I want to pay for half the cost of Bridget’s Park,” I said, hugging Toran later that night in bed. I had worn my black negligee with garters. He had taken it off, quick as a lick, and we continued our goal to try out love scenes from my books. I am proud of my flexibility. “I’ll share it with you and Bridget.”

“No, Charlotte.”

“Let me pay for half.”

“Never. I will not take money from my woman.”

I pulled his head down to mine and kissed him. I sure liked contacts better than glasses. The glasses used to get in the way of my kisses with Toran.

“Yes, Toran. Don’t be a beast.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Then I’m going to pay for the gazebo, the fountain, the rose garden, and the play structure.”

“Aren’t you the funny one? That’s much of the cost.”

I smiled and kissed him again. I kissed his mouth, his neck, his chest, then moved lower. He thought nothing more of the park.

We discussed it later, again and again, over the next week. It never became mean, never heated, always ended in a hug and a kiss. It’s important to know how someone is going to argue.

In the end, Scottish Warrior agreed I could pay for the roses for the garden, trees, and the statue. He and Bridget would pay for the sprawling two-story play structure with bridges and tunnels, the swings, the fountain, the flower beds, etc.

I wrote the checks. He said, firmly, “That’s enough.”

I knew he meant it.

A feminist knows when to allow her man to be a man.

And I liked the manly man in Toran.