The Promise of Home (12 page)

“Thank you,” Claudia said. “Not every guy would agree to having her come, you know. Just shows how lucky I am to be marrying you.” She pressed her head against his chest as he leaned down to kiss her hair.

“I'm the lucky one,” Kyle insisted. “There aren't many people who'd want to invite someone like Daisy. But I think you're right. If she's never been to a wedding, it'll be special for her. Something she'll never forget.”

In the parish house Monday afternoon, Father O'Brien was looking over his schedule for the next day. He had an early-morning Pre-Cana meeting with Kyle Hansen and Claudia Simon. While he had always conducted the marriage preparation courses for couples in his congregation, Kyle and Claudia wanted to complete the classes through a new program offered on the Internet. The technological world was largely foreign to him. Oh, he had a computer in the church office, and occasionally he managed to send an email or print out a letter. He usually left those tasks to Elsa Green, the wonderful lady who worked as his secretary in the church office. He was a painfully slow typist, and just the concept of the Internet or the World Wide Web or whatever they called it these days was quite intimidating.

He had agreed to let Kyle and Claudia complete their classes by computer only after learning that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops considered the online program an acceptable alternative to regular classes, and only upon the condition that they meet with him a few times in person as well. How learning something by staring at a computer screen could ever be as good as learning it in a class, with a real-life teacher, he didn't know.

The only other item on his agenda for Tuesday was the interview with Julia Tomlinson from
America
magazine. Interview requests like hers had come up once in a while throughout his years of service, particularly once he was older than seventy-five, typically the mandatory retirement age for priests. He expected questions about his education and training and the reason for his unusually long tenure and service exclusively to the Mill River community. There might be a bit of additional press coverage stirred up once the interview was in print. Before long, it would fade away, and he would continue on as usual.

As Father O'Brien stared at Tuesday on his day planner, the items scribbled there suddenly became a bit blurry. He blinked a few times and removed his reading glasses to rub his eyes. It was the second time in a week he'd had trouble reading something.
It must be eye strain
, he told himself.
I've been reading more than usual these past few days
. After his experience with his hearing aids, the last thing he wanted to do was get used to a stronger prescription for his glasses, but a trip to the optometrist appeared inevitable.

He sat back in his chair, smiling a little as he remembered himself as a much younger man with perfect senses. After a minute or so, he pulled out the large bottom drawer in his desk and removed a small box. It was in this box that he had consolidated his few and precious personal possessions. Among those items was a portrait taken on the day of his ordination. He'd been in his early twenties, with smooth skin and a full head of hair. Those parts of his appearance had changed dramatically, but his twinkling blue eyes were the same, as was the hopeful smile that still appeared in the mirror today.

Beneath the portrait were some black-and-white photos in various stages of turning yellow. He lifted them out and slowly looked through them. His father and mother in their wedding portrait. His mother, Anna, and her brother, Frank, standing together as children. A family shot of himself, his older brother, Seamus, their parents, and their grandparents standing in front of the farmhouse. He gave a soft, wistful sigh as he gazed at the images. It was a sad truth that for quite some time, he had been the sole surviving member of his family.

Other photographs in the box were of Mary McAllister, his closest friend, who had passed the previous spring. She'd hated seeing any image of herself, but she had allowed him to take her picture from time to time so long as he didn't show her the image afterward. He especially liked his photo of Mary standing beside Ebony, her beloved black Morgan mare. It had been a warm day in late spring, and the breeze had lifted Mary's hair and Ebony's mane in a gust. Mary was wearing an eye patch in the picture, the one she always used to conceal the gruesome injury her husband had inflicted on her, but she was hugging the black mare and smiling.

Other than photographs, there were two objects in the box. A black marble figurine of a horse sat heavily in one corner. It was the carved likeness of Ebony that had been used by Mary's late husband to rob her of sight in one eye and disfigure her permanently. Despite the terrible damage it had inflicted on her, Mary had kept and loved the figurine, and Father O'Brien had taken it as a keepsake after her death.

The last item in the box was a dainty silver teaspoon that Mary had given him. This delicate, sparkling object was his most prized possession. The smooth, convex back of the spoon bore an inscription that read: “To my dear friend, love, MEHM.” Mary had been the first person to whom he had confided his greatest source of shame—a compulsion to steal and hoard spoons, with which he had struggled most of his life. If truth be told, he still battled on a daily basis to keep from acting on the sinful habit.

Mary had known of his spoon problem, but she had accepted him as a friend in spite of it and even conspired to assist him in certain ways. She had given him the engraved teaspoon so he would possess at least one spoon that was not sinfully obtained.

Father O'Brien gently traced the edge of the spoon with his finger. The memory of Mary's thin, jaundiced face when she had presented it to him at Christmastime last year was still fresh in his mind. In the months since Mary's death, he had come to view the beautiful teaspoon from her own flatware as a symbol of the most important parts of his past. It—all spoons, really—reminded him of his struggle as a teenager to care for his family in his father's absence. More than anything, this one spoon reminded him of Mary and how he had loved her with all his heart as the sister he never had.

April 1, 1934

“M
other!” Michael yelled. Both he and his uncle Frank lunged around the kitchen table toward her, and Frank managed to catch one of her arms before her head hit the floor. Once they reached her, they gently lowered her down.

“Anna? Anna?” Frank asked, gently patting Anna on the cheek.

“Here, here's a cool cloth for her,” Lizzie said. Michael took the wet towel she held out and pressed it against his mother's forehead. A few tense moments passed before his mother's eyelids fluttered open. She focused her gaze first on Frank, then turned her head slightly to look at Michael.

“Anna? Can you hear me? You fainted just now. Are you all right?” his uncle asked.

“I think so,” his mother said weakly. “I don't know what came over me. I've been feeling a little off yesterday and this morning, but I figured whatever it was would pass after a few days.”

“Do you feel like you can sit up?” Michael asked, and when she nodded, he and his uncle helped her into a sitting position on the floor and then onto one of the kitchen chairs.

“Have some water, Anna,” his grandmother said as she set a full glass on the table.

“Thank you, Lizzie. I— Oh, goodness, I spilled egg all over the floor.”

“Don't you worry about that. I'll clean it up, and I'll see that Frank and Michael are taken care of,” his grandmother said as she retrieved the frying pan. “You best go lie down for a while until whatever this is runs its course.”

“That's right, Anna,” Frank said. “Here, Michael and I will walk you back to your room.”

His mother nodded and, holding on to the back of the chair, slowly rose from it. Michael and his uncle each put an arm around her waist and went with her down the hall, where they helped her lie down on her bed.

When they returned to the kitchen, Lizzie was staring out the window above the sink. “She's resting,” Frank said, as she turned to face them. “Mrs. O'Brien, did you have any idea Anna wasn't feeling well? Did she say anything to you?”

“No, nothing. Although she did say that the smell of the hobo was making her feel sick before we dragged him out on the back porch.”

“She almost got sick yesterday morning as well, when we were cleaning out the root cellar,” Michael said quietly. Both his grandmother and uncle looked at him with surprise. “There was a rotten potato. It made a horrible stench when she picked it up, and she had to leave quickly. I didn't think anything of it, though. The smell of it about made me sick, too.”

His uncle and grandmother exchanged a worried glance. “Maybe Anna's right, and it's just a brief problem that will clear up quickly,” his uncle said.

His grandmother sighed and turned toward the window again. “For Anna's sake, I hope you're right. But it doesn't sound to me like something that will be going away anytime soon.”

“You don't think…” his uncle said. “Didn't the doctor tell her it would be unlikely? Especially after the others?”

Michael knew then what possibility his uncle and grandmother were discussing, and it scared him. He couldn't bear the thought of seeing his mother stiff and unmoving, like the body he'd helped to hide during the night. Almost as disturbing was the thought of a new stone being added to the small cluster of markers in the pasture.

“Yes, and risky at her age,” his grandmother said. “But he didn't say it would be impossible.”

The next morning, when Michael rose for school, it was his grandmother who was in the kitchen fixing breakfast.

“Good morning,” she said as he appeared. “Your mother was up earlier, but she looked so puny that I sent her back to bed. I think she fell asleep again.”

“It's good that she's resting.”

“Yes. She needs to keep her strength up.”

Michael didn't know what to say to that, although his grandmother's statement stirred up the uneasy concern that had been lingering inside his belly since his uncle's visit the previous day. “I'll be right back. I'm just going to fill up the wood box,” he finally said.

“All right, but be quick about it, or your eggs will go cold.”

After breakfast, Michael grabbed his books and cap and headed down the driveway. He made it to the end just in time to catch the old brown bus that provided transportation to Edmunds High School for students who lived in rural areas.

He had always been an excellent student. English, Latin, and history were his favorite classes, but his marks were strong in every subject, which pleased his mother greatly. It was part of the reason he hadn't been allowed to go with his father and brother to New York. “Your father needs you here,” his mother had said, trying to temper his disappointment at his father's decision to seek a job in a different state. “He needs to find work, but he'd never leave Grandma and me here by ourselves for a long period of time. Besides, we both want you to finish school. Your good grades could get you into college, you know, and with a higher education, you'll have so many more options than your father or Seamus. Try to have patience, Michael. There'll come a time for you to venture out into the world, too.”

The ride to the tall, brick school building on the corner of Main and South Union streets went quickly. The school day, though, seemed to drag on forever. Michael was distracted and spent much of the day staring out the great arched windows of the classrooms. His thoughts wandered from the events of Saturday night in the graveyard, to his mother's health, and to his father and brother working so far away. It was a relief when classes were dismissed for the day and he was back on the rickety bus to the farm.

He opened the mailbox before beginning the walk down the driveway, but what he found inside caused him to sprint the distance to the house.

“Mother! Grandma! There's a letter from Father!” he yelled as he burst through the front door.

They were sitting at the table with cups of tea as he entered. His mother's expression of joy did nothing to hide the dark circles under her eyes.

“Wonderful! I'll read it aloud,” she said, and he gave her the letter to open. There was a piece of paper inside, covered with handwriting on front and back and folded around a five-dollar bill.

“Thank goodness,” his grandmother said when she saw his mother place the bill on the table. “Quickly, Anna, let's hear it.”

Michael set his books on the table and straddled a chair backward as his mother began to read:

March 26, 1934

To Mother, Michael, and my dearest Anna,

I hope this letter finds you well, and that my earlier postcard arrived without delay.

Seamus and I are fine and have been working steadily. A day's work brings each of us $4, which is the lowest rate of pay for a bridgeworker here, but we are thankful to have our positions. Most of our days are spent clearing debris to make room for access roads to the bridge site. We are both learning to weld so that we may eventually join the ironworkers, whose positions pay more.

The bridge will eventually connect three boroughs of New York City—Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. It is massive in scope and will surely take a number of years to complete.

We are staying in Queens, and the place is crawling with workers from all over the country. I have heard others in our tenement say that there are well over a thousand men working on the bridge. All were hired through the local union, even those like us from another state. Much of our first paychecks went to pay rent and purchase supplies and also to buy local names and addresses so that we could be hired on under the requirements of the union. It seems to me an illegal scheme to line the pockets of the union, but it was the only way we would be given work. I pray the $5 I am enclosing will see you through until I am able to send more.

I believe our positions here will hold out for some time. If all is well at home, we plan to stay as long as possible, hopefully until winter. Of course, you should send for us immediately if the need arises.

I'll write as often as I can. Seamus and I miss and look forward to hearing from you.

With all my love,

Niall

For a moment, no one spoke. Michael watched his mother's face. She held the letter after she finished reading it aloud and stared at it. As her eyes moved quickly through the words again, her hand moved slightly on the surface of the table to feel the thin edge of the money. When she had finished reading the letter a second time, she folded it back into its envelope and smiled.

“Well, Anna, you look like you're feeling better today than you were yesterday, and this letter is even more of a relief. Besides, we didn't properly celebrate Easter yesterday. What do you say we have something special for dinner tonight?”

His mother turned to his grandmother. “What did you have in mind, Lizzie?”

“How about chicken stew? One of the old hens has stopped laying. She's already been through two molts, so she's about finished. Besides, two other hens are brooding their eggs, so there'll be plenty of chicks to replace her.”

Michael's mouth watered at the thought of eating stewed chicken with rich golden gravy. It was a rare treat indeed, as their current flock was barely big enough to keep the family in eggs.

“All right. If you'll go take care of the hen, I'll get some water boiling to blanch the feathers. Tomorrow we should go into town for gas and groceries. We're about out of everything.”

Michael almost skipped out the door to attend to his chores. Splitting and carrying wood, even cleaning out Onion's stall, didn't seem so bad now that they knew his father and brother were established and able to send support. His mother seemed to have turned the corner, and other than the troubling unfinished business with Uncle Frank, it looked like everything was falling into place.

He would complete the school year and work on the farm during the summer. They could plant a huge garden, and when his father sent more money, they could start buying some livestock to build up the place. Having a pig or two and some more chickens would make next winter easier. Onion would have a calf later in the spring as well. They could sell it for additional income or keep it, if it turned out to be a heifer.

He would do everything he could to help his mother and grandmother throughout the fall. His father and brother would return home, and the family would be reunited and secure. Maybe his father would decide to stay and make a run at farming. Maybe, with the continued implementation of Roosevelt's policies, the country would be on more stable financial footing by then.

It was an optimistic outlook, he knew, but it was the first time in a long time that he had any reason to feel hopeful.
Such a change, from only a letter and a single bill,
he mused. And yet, those flimsy pieces of paper gave him a strange reassurance that everything was going to be all right.