The Shortest Way Home (42 page)

“Not quite what you expected,” Sean murmured. “Which house was yours?”

“I’m not entirely sure.”

On his opposite side stood Kevin. Sean saw the boy slide his hand into his grandfather’s. The three of them stood there surveying the remains of Da’s boyhood. Sheep grazed across the hillside. The sun shone, bleaching the white of the few standing cottages, super-saturating the green of the grass. It was breathtakingly beautiful . . . and devastatingly sad, all at once.

“Let’s go to the top where we can see better,” said Kevin. “I bet you’ll find your house then.”

So they climbed, and as they did, Da was able to get his bearings. “This was the schoolhouse,” he told Kevin. “But we didn’t even have a teacher those last years. Most of the children went to Dunquin for school, but my parents didn’t want me to go. I was their only child, and
mamaí
wanted me with her, so she taught me herself.”

“You called her mommy? What did you call your grandfather?”

“Mine had died before I was old enough to address them. But I would have called them
daideó
.” It sounded like “daddo.” “In Dunquin the English-speaking kids used ‘gran-da.’ ”

Sean realized he’d never heard the boy call Da anything at all. They wandered uphill, and Da pointed out different houses and who had lived in them. Finally they came to the one he remembered best of all. “This is it,” he said. “Here’s my home.”

The back wall, what was left of it, was set against the hill. One side wall had held a door with two windows on either side. Remnants of the fireplace were barely visible behind the weeds that sprouted out of the dirt floor. Da described the contents as if it were a litany of sacred objects. “This was my parents’ bed,” he said, pointing to one corner, “and here’s mine over here. Here’s the table and chairs, and the cabinet for the dishes.” His hands made the shapes as he trod through the weeds. “The roof was very sturdy—my da made sure of that. We used to dry the fish up there on sunny days to cure it for the winter. But you couldn’t smell it in the house. That’s how tight that roof was.”

And now it was made of sunlight and salt air.

Da took the little whitewashed stone out of his pocket. “I had the idea that the divot I made when I took it would still be here, and it would fit right in.” But there was no whitewash left, nothing but rain-battered stones ready to topple at the next stiff wind.

Kevin made a loop with his thumb and forefinger and rested it on a rock in the doorway. “Here,” he said. “Try it out.”

Da set the little stone into the well of the boy’s fingers. He laid his hand lightly on his grandson’s head and gazed at his scraped face. “You’re a keeper,
cuisle mo chroí
.”

* * *

K
evin wanted to get a closer look at the seals on the beach. About forty of them were nestled together at the far end of the sandy spit, like an enormous lumpy gray blanket. Sean, Kevin, and Da sat a respectful distance away and pulled out the sandwiches and drinks they’d brought. Kevin ate his quickly and went down to the water’s edge to skip stones.

“Our name in Irish,” said Da, “it means either exile or pilgrim.”

“Doran? I didn’t know that.”

“There’s some irony in it. It’s the same word whether you’re coming or going. Whether you’re being kicked out or drawn toward a place.” He glanced back toward the village. “I’ve felt like an exile ever since I left here. Except with your mother, of course. That woman had a way of making me feel so at home. You know how that feels? Like you’re in exactly the right place?”

“Yeah,” said Sean. “I used to feel that way when I was up to my armpits in a medical crisis—a birth gone wrong or a bad burn. The worse it was, the surer I was.”

“Admirable.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s just my drug of choice—other people’s medical problems.”

“Ha!” Da laughed. “Either way, it’s a damn sight better than pickling your own liver and puking in your bed!” He clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder and Sean allowed it. “Doing good for the wrong reason is still doing good. Who’s to say anyone’s motives are completely pure?”

“I guess I was more of a pilgrim, then. I never felt kicked out. I always wanted to go.”

“It gets to be a bit of a habit, doesn’t it? The leaving.” He picked up a handful of sand and let it slip through his fingers, studying it as if to gauge it against memory. “You said you
were
a pilgrim. Are you still?”

“I don’t know. I certainly don’t have the religious fervor. At least not anymore.”

“But you did at one time.”

“Yeah, it was . . . you know . . . my purpose. God’s plan. Go patch up a bunch of people.”

“What changed?”

Sean shrugged. “I guess I thought Huntington’s gave me some sort of special status, turned me from a pumpkin into a golden carriage.” He gave a self-deprecating little snort. “Now I know I was just a pumpkin all along.”

Kevin ran toward them. “Can I go in?” he called. “It’s getting hot!”

“Okay,” said Sean. “But you’ll have to go in your boxers. We didn’t bring extra clothes.”

“You can’t go deep,” Da warned. “That current will take you out to sea like a rocket.” Kevin pulled off his shirt and pants and ran back to the water. “You have to watch him,” said Da.

“I’m watching him.” Kevin waded slowly into the water, holding his arms out.

“Does he know about the Huntington’s?” Da asked.

The question caught Sean off guard. “What? I . . . I have no idea.”

“You were about this age when we told you. He should know.”

“We don’t know if Hugh had it. It’s very possible Kevin’s not even at risk.”

“Yes, but we’ll
never
know if Hugh had it. We have to assume he’s at risk.”

“I’ve assumed that all my life. It didn’t do me any good.”

“The doctor told us we should tell you. He said it gets harder as the child gets older.”

“I can’t think about that now, Da.” Sean watched the boy hop a little deeper. “I don’t even know who’s going to take care of him when I leave, I can’t exactly—
Oh, Jesus!
”

Kevin seemed to lose his footing, and suddenly his head bobbed under. Sean was racing toward the shore in an instant. “Kevin!” he yelled. Though it was only about a hundred feet, it seemed to take ages to cover the distance, and the boy still hadn’t come up.
“Kevin!”

Sean dashed into the cold water and immediately felt the pull of the current—it was much stronger than it seemed from the surface. He spun around, arms carving through the water to search out and grab hold of the boy. But they found nothing.

Da ran into the water, but Sean called to him to stay shallow. All he needed was for the old man to go under, too. They screamed and screamed for Kevin, scrambling back and forth in the waves, Sean’s legs aching against the grip of the current.

Seconds ticked by, and Sean’s medical brain began spinning through the possible outcomes of oxygen deprivation . . . loss of consciousness . . . brain damage . . . death. “KEVIN!” His voice intertwined with his father’s broken cries and the raw wind.

Finally, a few yards to the right, Kevin’s black hair parted the waves and he came up sputtering. He went under again before Sean could get to him, but Sean dove in his direction and was able to grab an arm and haul him up to the surface. He pulled the boy close and struggled against the current as he carried him toward the shore. As the last wave licked at his ankles, he stumbled and they both fell onto the sand.

“Are you all right?” Sean grabbed his face to look at him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Kevin choked out. “But you’re hurting my scrape.”

Da was kneeling over them, “Kevin!
Jesussufferingchrist,
boy!”

“Sorry,” he coughed, sitting up. “It got deep faster than I thought.”

“You nearly gave me a heart attack!” Sean panted raggedly. Then he felt his father’s arms come around his shoulders, steadying him, comforting him, and he thought he might cry from the relief—not just for Kevin’s safety, but for his father’s embrace, something he realized he’d longed for for almost thirty years.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” said Kevin.

“I know, it’s okay.” Sean rested his head against his father’s shoulder, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “If you’re okay, everything’s okay.”

CHAPTER 51

“Y
our last full day in Ireland,” Da said to Sean and Kevin over breakfast the next morning. “What do you want to do?”

Kevin said, “I want to know why one meat muffin’s black and the other one’s white.”

“Ah, the black one has a secret ingredient I dare not reveal!”

“What is it?”

“Da . . .” Sean shook his head. “Trust me, Kev, you don’t want to know.”

“Tell me!”

“It’s blood!”

“Gross!”
said Kevin, stabbing the dark pudding with his fork and flicking it onto Sean’s plate. “That’s disgusting! Why would anyone put blood in food?”

“Because it’s full of nutrients, lad! If you’ve precious little to eat, you’ll get your nutrition where and how you can.” Da laughed. “Now it’s just tradition. Eat the white one. It’s got no bodily fluids that I know of.” Not surprisingly, Kevin was done with breakfast.

In Dunquin, Da showed them his parents’ gravestones and took them over to see the small apartment he planned to rent, tacked onto the back of one of the newer homes.

“In America they call it an in-law apartment,” he told Sean, “though the only in-law I have is your aunt Vivvy. But then she’s more than enough—quite a bit more!”

* * *

T
he next day they rose early for the long car ride back to Shannon Airport.

“It’s weird that you’re not coming with us, Granda,” Kevin said disconcertedly.

“I feel a bit discombobulated about it myself.”

“Da, think about coming back for Christmas. Then we’ll all be there together.”

“I’ll do that.” Da extended his hand to shake and Sean took it. But then his father pulled him in for a hug. “You’re a good boy,” Da murmured in his ear, and squeezed him a little tighter, as if he could embed a reminder of himself in Sean’s skin.

“Love you, Da,” said Sean. Because he did.

“Love
you
.” He released Sean, took a breath, and stuck his strong hand out to his grandson. Kevin moved forward hesitantly and put his arms around his grandfather’s waist. Da gently laid his hands on Kevin’s back. He whispered something down to the boy.

“What does it mean?” Kevin whispered back.

“Pulse of my heart.”

* * *

W
hen they got back to Belham after the long flight, Deirdre was packed and ready to go. She would be staying with an old friend in Brooklyn, and said how anxious she was to get there . . . and yet she kept not leaving. “Seriously, how was it?” she asked Kevin, studying him as closely as if he were the basis for a part she might play someday.

“Great!” He told her about surfing and climbing Carrauntoohil, and nearly drowning, and taught her how to say
dia dhuit
, in case she met any Irishmen in New York. She listened raptly to his stories and practiced her Irish hello with him until she could say it as well as he could.

“And what was the most annoying thing—the worst bad smell or sound?” she asked him with a sly smile.

“That’s easy,” he said. “Uncle Sean and Granda snoring together. It was like sleeping with a cave full of bears.”

When Kevin took George outside to play, she asked Sean, “Was it weird with Da?”

“A little at first. But we got used to him pretty fast. Do you wish you’d seen him?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I mean, really, what’s the point? But he was good with Kevin?”

“Actually he was pretty terrific.”

“Huh,” she snorted. “Making up for lost time.”

“I suppose he was,” Sean conceded.
Aren’t we all,
he thought.

The sound of Kevin jabbering to George filtered in through the kitchen windows, filling the silence between them. “How’s Viv been?” he asked.

“Same,” said Deirdre, poking around in her purse to find her sunglasses. “By the way, the school called. You got that job.”

After a loving but not-too-tight hug for Kevin, including a kiss that he promptly wiped off, and an admonishment to Sean to get the kid an e-mail account so she could communicate with him, Deirdre was backing out of the driveway, her little car packed to the roof. Sean and Kevin waved from the porch; Aunt Vivvy stood stone-faced, and Sean wondered if she understood that Deirdre wouldn’t be back—or if she understood all too well.

“That’s a lot of good-byes for one day,” said Kevin.

Too true,
thought Sean. Deirdre’s departure officially certified that they were all irrevocably his responsibility. He wished he could talk to Rebecca about it—this and a million other things. His need to see her had been rising in pitch like an oncoming train all day. In Ireland it had been easier to accept their separation—or perhaps to deny it. Across an entire ocean, there was no question of access. Now the distance was easily walkable. It was killing
him.

This must be how alcoholics feel,
he thought, the hundredth time he considered calling her and convinced himself not to. He suddenly had a greater respect for his father, watching his son have a pint, while he himself drank ginger ale.

That night, as he was turning off lights and locking up, he passed the phone.
Ginger ale,
he tried to tell himself, but this time it didn’t work. He picked up the receiver and dialed.

“Hi,” she said, and by the way she said it, he knew she’d checked the caller ID first. The fact that she’d decided to answer anyway made him anxious not to make her regret it.

“Hey,” he said, and he hoped it was with just the right tone—enthusiastic but not giddy, warm but not stalkerish.

“How was your trip?”

“It was pretty great, actually. We got back a couple of hours ago. How was your week?”

“Um, good. I’m painting so it’s kind of a mess. But it’s coming together.”

“That’s great!”

“Thanks.”

There were a couple of beats of silence, and he started to panic just a little. “So, listen, I was going to e-mail you instead of call, but Deirdre left for New York right after we got home, and she took her laptop with her, so I couldn’t get online, but since I’m going to be here awhile I’m thinking I should probably pick one up.”
Nice going,
he told himself.
Way to babble.