The Crow of Connemara (7 page)

Jen shook her head. “Sure,” Colin told him.

“Ice?”

“Neat, please.”

Tommy handed Colin a glass heavy with amber liquid. He swirled it around, sniffing the fragrance that held just a touch of peat smoke. He sipped. “Thanks,” he said. Tommy nodded, then took a chair next to Harris, who was also nursing some of the whiskey. Harris leaned over to talk earnestly in Tommy's ear, with Tommy shaking his head. Jen sat in the chair next to Colin. For several seconds, no one said anything, the air filled with the clatter of forks on plates.

It was Tommy who spoke first.

“Everyone's spoken to the doctors, and now Colin's had his chance as well,” he said. Colin thought he saw Harris make a moue of distaste as Tommy spoke. “Sad as it is, we all know what we're looking at, and I'm sure we all have opinions as to what's the best thing to do. But personally, I don't think it's a group decision. Mom, it's yours to make, and I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we'll stand by that decision, whatever it is.”

Colin saw tears gathering in his mother's eyes again as she set down the cake, untouched, on the coffee table in front of the couch, and the sight made him feel guilty for not wanting to stay here with her. As difficult as the situation was for him or for Tommy and Jen, it was entirely life-changing for her. For over four decades, she and his father had been making a life together, and even if it wasn't a life that Colin would have wanted, it was the one that they'd chosen together. Their marriage had worked for them and made them happy as a couple from everything he'd seen. And now that life was threatened.

She'll be alone here, and I've just told her I don't want to stay here to help her. I'm really showing lots of empathy for the person who gave me life . . .

“This is all so horrible and so sudden,” his mother began, and Patty stroked her arm. “If I thought there was
any
chance that he might recover, any chance at all . . .”

“Then keep him on the vent, Mom,” Jen put in. “It's not a question of money, and it's not going to
hurt
Dad to do that. You can take all the time you want or need to make your decision, and maybe in the meantime Dad will come out of it. I know that's what Father Frank told you the Church would want you to do.”

“Is that what
you'd
do, Jen?” Colin's mother asked, and Jen shook her head.

“No, Mom,” she husked out. “Honestly, I'm afraid it isn't. I know what the Church teaches, but . . . I think Dad's already gone. I'd have them turn off the machines.”

He saw his mother give her a faint nod. “I didn't think so,” she said. “The doctors are saying that even if he does wake up, he won't be the same person. Tom always said that this was what scared him the most, having his body continuing to live when his mind was gone. He always said he'd rather be dead . . .” Her voice shivered and broke on the last word. Aunt Patty hugged her. Across from Colin, Harris nodded vigorously. “If there was any hope at all, I'd say let's give him a chance to recover, but . . .” his mother half-whispered, but again she was unable to finish the thought and her voice trailed off.

The silence that followed seemed to last minutes. Colin could hear the ice cubes chime against the glass Tommy held. Colin took a sip of his own whiskey and a long breath.

“I feel the same way Jen does,” Colin spoke into the quiet of the room. “Dad's already gone. When I was in his room, looking at him . . .” He shook his head. “Mom, I'm sorry, but I think the doctors are right; he's brain dead—and that's more a real death than the physical one. We're just keeping Dad's body here artificially. I'm glad I got the chance to say good-bye to him, but—” He brought his shoulders up in a helpless shrug and sipped at the whiskey again, letting it burn the words in his throat.

“Then you're all in agreement.” She looked at each of them in turn. Her eyes were dry now. “What the doctors want to do are the tests to declare him officially brain dead, then to . . . to. . . .” She struggled to say the words, closing her eyes and taking a shivering breath before she could speak again. “. . . harvest his body for organs before they remove him from the ventilator. You're all in agreement with that?”

“Yes,” Tommy answered. “Because that's what Dad would want us to do. At the very least, he'd want his death to help others.”

Colin nodded in agreement, as did Jen. Aunt Patty continued to stroke her sister's arm.

“I don't know if I could make that decision on my own,” Colin's mother said. “I
still
don't know; I'm still not certain. I can't decide tonight and I can't decide right here. I'm sorry.”

“Don't be sorry, Mom,” Jen told her. “It's okay.”

“I know. And I know that the way you all feel isn't wrong at all, no matter what Father Frank might suggest. It's just . . . Let me sleep on it, and I'll talk to Father Frank tomorrow after Mass, and then see the doctors again afterward. I can make the decision then.”

With the statement, the atmosphere in the room seemed to lighten perceptibly. Colin noticed the evening sunlight slanting in through the window, catching floating dust specks in its brilliance. He took another long sip of the whiskey.

“I'll let the party officials know tomorrow after you make the decision,” Harris said. “After all, Tom here has decided that he'll run in his father's place—no matter what the outcome or the choice you make, Mrs. Doyle, it's obvious that Tom Sr. isn't going to be able to continue his campaign. We're obligated to hold another quick primary election to officially replace him on the ballot, but it'll just be a formality.”

The sun seemed to slip behind a cloud again. The room darkened. “Carl,” Tommy snapped. “Shut the fuck up.”

“What?” Harris said, looking startled. He spread his hands, the ice cubes rattling in his whiskey glass. “You know that no serious candidate would run against you. You have the sympathy vote all locked up.”

“Carl . . .” Tommy said again, warningly. He set down his whiskey with a crash on the table beside his chair. Golden liquid sloshed over the rim. “This isn't the time or the place. I don't care what you've been hired to do. We're not going to turn Dad's death into a political circus.”

He already has,
Colin wanted to say.
And now you can't avoid it.
That also explained why Harris seemed to be attached to Tommy's hip: he was the Heir Apparent. Colin wondered how much that tempered any doubt his older brother might have had regarding whether or not to pull the plug on their father.

The lines of his mother's face had hardened a bit. “Tommy,” she said, “why didn't I know this?”

“I didn't know myself until yesterday,” he said, “when we met with Dad's campaign staff. You know Dad always said I should move into politics earlier than he did. I was going to tell you after you made the decision—” that with a glare at Harris, “—but I thought you'd be pleased that I was following Dad's path.”

Her face relaxed slightly. “I don't know. I have to think some more . . .”

“Well, we're not going to decide right now,” Jen commented, rising from her chair, “so I'm going to take care of the dishes. Colin, would you mind helping?”

“No, not at all,” he said. He finished his whiskey in one swallow, letting the heat settle into his stomach. He rose and followed Jen to the door.

Both of them said very little on the drive back to her apartment until Jen reached I-90/I-94 East off of North Paulina, heading back to her apartment near DePaul. “Y'know,” Colin mused as Jen made the turn, “it's strange how one moment I can feel furious with Mom, and the next I'm thinking that I'm just an asshole who should be much nicer to her.”

“That's family,” Jen said. She flicked on her turn signal as she merged with the traffic, then nudged it back off. “They're the people we love to hate. She can be a total dragon. But her intentions are always good—she only wants what's best for us, and she'll fight like hell against anything she thinks might be a threat to any of us.”

“Even if it's not what
we
want.” Colin laid his head on the window, staring at the traffic. His glasses clicked against the curve of the window and pressed uncomfortably against his nose; he shifted position.

“I guess it's hard to stop thinking of your children as kids who don't know enough to make a good decision—even after they've grown up.”

“I felt like I should have stayed with her tonight. That bit about cleaning my room and all . . .”

“Aunt Patty's staying with her. She's not going to be alone, and the two of you would probably just have ended up getting into an argument.”

“I know, but . . .” He took a long breath. “I'm her son, and she made the offer. It was pretty obvious she expected me to stay.”

“Uh-huh.” Jen said nothing. He glanced over to her; her eyes were focused on the road though there wasn't—at least by Chicago standards—a great deal of traffic. He could see a muscle clench in her jaw. Colin decided to mention at least one of the herd of elephants in the back seat.

“Dad's already gone,” he said. “If he's brain dead, then he's dead. Period.”

“I know. It still doesn't make the decision any easier, not when I go into his room and see his chest rising and falling and see his pulse on the monitor. Not when I can lay my head on his chest and still hear his heart beating.” The muscle along her jawline relaxed, then bunched again.

“Are you thinking maybe we should give him more time, the way Father Frank suggests?”

“No,” she said quickly, then shook her head, glaring at the cars ahead of them. “I don't know, Colin. I just don't know. Not really, I guess. I'll stick by what I said after dinner. But it seems like Tommy, or Harris anyway, doesn't want to waste any time. Tommy's already planning to
be
Dad, at least in the electorate's minds. And somehow I don't think you want to wait, either—the sooner this is done, the sooner you . . .” She stopped. “Well, what
is
it that you're going to do? Somehow I don't think it involves going back to Seattle.”

Colin didn't answer; he didn't see any need to do so. They both knew the answer. They listened to the sound of the engine as Jen changed lanes. In the back seat, another of the elephants shifted position.

“You've been reading my mind,” Colin ventured.

“I always could, even when you were a kid,” Jen answered. He saw her gaze flick over once to him, then back to the road.
“What are you not telling me?” she asked him. “Because I think there's a lot.”
Another elephant. It's amazing that the car's suspension isn't dragging on the pavement.

He shrugged although she wasn't looking at him. “I don't know. It's just . . .” He let out a breath, then released the words he'd been holding back since he'd come to Chicago. “I've left school, Jen. As of a week ago. I told my committee that I was taking at least a semester off and wouldn't be starting my dissertation. Every time I play music, Jen, I feel like
that's
what I'm supposed to be doing. Not the research, not the dissertation, not the teaching. Playing music. It's what feels right. And lately, it seems like the audience feels it, too.”

“And when exactly were you planning to tell anyone this?”

The elephants stirred in the back seat, guiltily. “I was planning to come back here after I got an Irish visa in hand, and tell Dad . . .” The word made him stop, his voice choking. Visions of his father rose up like apparitions around him. “ . . . Dad and Mom, and you and Tommy then. Sometime before the end of the semester, when I'd had time to get everything together. Then all this crap happened, and there wasn't a good time or place to say anything at all.”

“So it's the Ireland thing again? What you and Dad were fighting about before you went to grad school?”

He let that sit for a bit, watching the lights of the city slide by. Finally, he let out a nasal breath. “Maybe. Jen, over there, where the music I like best came from, well, it's easy to think that there's something more behind or underneath the tunes. At least that's what some of the musicians I knew who are from there tell me. I've wanted to go over for so long. There are old bones in the earth there, a sense of the presence of all that history and all those old gods. There isn't that sharp separation between the natural and the supernatural there; the boundaries sometimes are all blurred. Over here . . . well, it's different.”

“You're just romanticizing the place, Colin. That's all.”

“Maybe, but then again, I won't know until I actually get there, will I?” he answered, then stopped as she switched lanes again to exit at East Jackson. Jen wiped at her cheek, almost angrily, and he realized that she was crying. He put a hand on her shoulder. She sniffed and tried to smile at him.