“Yes, from Paddy’s Crab Shack. He was here along with all of Dad’s cronies. You would have loved it. This deck turned into a dance floor. We had twinkle lights and music.” Erin grinned. “Dad was happy that night. It was right after Delores left. I can’t imagine all the feelings he has been going through these past few months.”
Erin relayed to Tony all the information Marge had just given her about Delores. She told Tony that she was thinking she would call Delores. “I really wish I hadn’t run out this morning.”
“Well, I wish I hadn’t run out so many years ago.”
Erin gave her brother a sympathetic nod. “All we can do is take it from here and run a good race to the finish.”
“Sounds like what we grew up hearing Dad say.”
“True, but now we’re finally at the place to take it to heart, I guess.”
Tony drew in the sea air, his chin lifted toward the sky the same way their dad drew in the air. “This feels so much like Kipahulu,” he said.
“And what is Kipp—a—whatever you said?”
“It’s the place where I was camping last month on the backside of Maui. It’s pristine like this with rugged coastline and black volcanic rock. Only on Maui it’s about thirty degrees warmer.”
“That would be nice. Believe me, I’ve sat out on this deck many times when I wished it were thirty degrees warmer.” Erin plunged her hands into the pockets of her green fleece and discovered she had put her phone in her pocket. Pulling it out, she checked her directory, clicking through the list until she found what she was looking for.
She held up her cell phone. “I’m going to call Delores.”
“I’ll have a look around while you make your call.”
“If you take that trail through the brambles, you’ll come out at a bench Dad installed at the cliff’s edge. The path through the woods takes you down to some tide pools.”
“Thanks. I won’t be gone long.”
Before dialing Delores’s phone number saved in her cell, Erin rolled back her shoulders and drew in a deep breath. As she exhaled, she closed her eyes and formed a prayer, once again releasing the anger she had felt toward Delores since the beginning. She pressed the Send button, feeling her heart pound. Delores’s voice mail answered.
Erin chose her words carefully. “Delores, this is Erin. If you would like to call me back, that would be great. If you don’t want to call me back, I understand that as well. I want there to be peace between us. I’m sorry I didn’t understand the whole picture of what was going on with you. I know it was your choice to keep your condition private. I want to honor that even though, to be honest, I don’t understand it.”
She took a quick breath and knew she needed to talk fast if she was going to get everything out in one message. “The point is, I know that my father loved you. That should be a good enough reason for me to love you, too, but I don’t think I did a very good job of that. I wish I’d opened my arms and my heart to you. Marge gave me the information you left with her. I’m so sorry you’re going through all this. I’d like to keep in touch, if you would. Mostly I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
When Erin hung up, she had a strong sense that she never would hear from Delores. Yet she felt free. She felt as if she had cleared her own angry thoughts toward Delores and was at peace. Tony and Jack weren’t the only O’Rileys who experienced the mending of a torn relationship that day.
The emotional peaks and valleys had worn her out. Erin went inside and sat beside her father. The marathon wasn’t over but it felt as if a new pace had been set for this race. Best of all, Erin now had Tony with her. Together they would go the final distance.
Later that afternoon Sylvia came by to visit. She brought four other townies with her, including Jo from Jenny Bee’s Fish House. Jo hadn’t seen her favorite breakfast customer for some time, and when she noted how weak and unresponsive he was, she cried.
Erin wondered how much all of this was getting through to her dad. Was he aware of what was going on, or had he used up his last bit of strength in communicating with Tony earlier that afternoon?
After everyone left, Tony brought in his bag and settled into the upstairs bedroom. Erin held her father’s limp hand and hummed softly. More than once she thought her father had slipped away quietly because his chest looked so still. Each time she would lean closer and could tell that he still was breathing in and out like the ocean tide.
Tony volunteered to make dinner after Marge left. Erin didn’t protest one bit. As she sat beside her dad, she kept up a one-sided conversation, recounting memories of childhood, remembering holidays and other happy moments when they were all together.
At one point she felt so engaged with him that she expected to see her father open his eyes and give her the wink of the Irish. But he didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He didn’t squeeze her hand back. He just breathed.
Tony set the tiny kitchen table and placed two bowls of steaming chicken soup in front of each place along with toasted garlic bread and a small plate with apple and cheese wedges. When they sat down together, Tony reached across the table and offered his hand to Erin as had been the habit around the table when they were growing up. They held hands, and Tony prayed. This was a moment Erin hadn’t expected to experience again in her life, and yet there they were, as natural as could be, just the two of them, holding hands and praying, thanking God for his generous provisions to them.
Erin took a sip of the soup from her large spoon, and her taste buds woke up. “Wow! What did you find to put in this? All I had left in there was some rotisserie chicken and a bag of minicarrots.”
“I made use of a few things I found in the cupboard. Do you like it?”
“Yes, it’s delicious.” She took several more sips, savoring the wild rice and slight taste of basil. “I would go so far as to say that aside from the omelets at Jenny Bee’s, this is the best food I’ve eaten since I arrived.”
“You really didn’t inherit Mom’s cleverness for cooking, did you?”
“No, not at all. I’m glad you did.”
Tony seemed to appreciate that praise from his big sister. She wondered if he was beginning to experience the same sort of liberation she had felt when she realized that her father’s 100 percent approval didn’t matter the way it used to. It was more important that she knew within her own spirit that she was becoming the person God had created her to be. Tony seemed to be more his true self than she ever had seen him in the past. She hoped her father had picked that up as well. She hoped part of his being at peace now was in knowing that both his children were doing well.
Erin offered to clean up after dinner so Tony could sit with their dad. He brought a pillow down from the bedroom and said he wanted to keep vigil that night by sleeping on the couch. His offer was a sweet relief for Erin after so many nights of interrupted sleep. She felt exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally.
When she entered the master bedroom, she found two wrapped gifts on the end of the bed. Had Marge placed them there? One was marked for Tony, and the other was for her. Erin sat down and unwrapped her gift. Inside was a beautiful, handcrafted photo album with her name on the cover. She opened to the first page and a bittersweet smile rose.
This was where her childhood photos had ended up. Delores had found that shoe box of her mother’s and had created a beautiful memento. All Erin’s memories were lovingly preserved. Delores had expressed her kindness to Erin in the only way she seemed to know how: she did a project—a beautiful project. As Erin turned each page, she realized this was Delores’s way of showing Jack’s two children that she cared about them.
Erin took her time looking at each photo, remembering the moment the photo represented. Delores seemed to have known, in an uncanny way, the order to put the photos in. Perhaps Erin’s father had helped with the project months ago, separating out the hundreds of pictures.
The last photo in Erin’s album was a picture of her wrapped up in a blanket, sitting beside her father on
the tailgate of their old station wagon. Her nine-year-old grin was a great big tangle of teeth, and she was sleepy-eyed in the hints of first light. Erin remembered the morning that shot was taken. Her father had gotten them up to watch the sun rise at the beach on Easter. Her mom was the one taking the picture. By Erin’s calculations her mom would have been very pregnant with her brother and not eager to have her picture taken.
Erin’s dad was sitting beside her on the car’s tailgate with his chin up, shoulders back, and his face to the fresh ocean breeze. She could almost hear his roaring voice. “Top of the morning, Glory!”
She stared at the photo for some time. The man beside her on that tailgate was the father she would hold foremost in her memory. That image of him when he was in the prime of his life, fit and happy, and with his blue eyes twinkling with mischief. That was the Jack O’Riley who would soon be escorted into eternity, the Jack O’Riley who would bow before the Maker of heaven and earth and with his resurrected tongue confess, as he had his entire life, that Jesus Christ was Lord of all.
All would be revealed. All would be made right. The rancid sting of death would be swallowed up in victory.
Soon.
22
May the good earth be soft under you
When you rest upon it,
And may it rest easy over you
When at the last you lay out under it,
And may it rest so lightly over you
That your soul may be out from under it
Quickly and up and off
And be on its way to God.
For the next three days Jack O’Riley lingered, barely breathing, bobbing between heaven and earth the way the mountain range of white clouds hovered on the horizon each night at the edge of the deep, wide ocean out the front window.
On Tuesday morning Erin woke just before dawn. Instead of rolling over and trying to capture a few more hours of sleep, she felt compelled to get up. Wrapping her robe around her and pulling on a pair of her dad’s socks that she had been using in lieu of slippers, she padded into the living room.
Tony was asleep on the couch. Their father was in the same position he had been in for days. Nothing had changed.
She tiptoed closer and placed her finger under his nostrils as she had done a dozen times over the last week or so, being careful not to touch his upper lip.
His breath peacefully ruffled against the skin on her finger. He was still here. She gazed at his emaciated frame in the glow of the morning light that came through the front window like a silver mist. The hollowed-out places where thick jowls had once been made him look delicate and frail. Reaching over, she gently stroked his snowy white crown.
His jaw went slack. The motion surprised her. He had been so still for so long. Then she heard a sound rise up from the depth of his chest. It was a faint gasp followed by a tone that was closer to a musical note than a sigh. The sound was barely audible. If she hadn’t been only inches away from him she would have missed it.
He made no motion and seemed to have no breath.
Erin held her finger under his nose. She placed the palm of her hand in front of his open mouth. Leaning over, she placed her ear against his chest.
No sound. No movement. No breath.
He was gone.
Erin drew back, feeling as if a surge of ice water were running through her veins. For weeks she had known this moment was at hand. For days she had checked him, thinking he was gone, and then checked again only to find that the shadow of life still clung to him.
No more.
God had called his name.
Erin lingered in the awful holiness of the moment.
Her father was dead. Jack O’Riley was no longer earthbound. His soul had soared across the sea. The absence of his presence became vivid as daylight filled the room, making his features clearer. It was evident that the essence of her father no longer was there. His body was empty. She couldn’t explain it any other way but to say that she was looking at a shell. A human shell. The eternal soul that had used that shell was gone.
Erin felt an unexpected sense of relief. In a way her father had been released from prison, the prison of his broken body. He could walk again and run and lift both arms. And he could sing. That thought comforted her the most. He could sing to the One who called him by name.
Erin stepped over to the couch. “Tony. Tony, wake up. He’s gone.”
Tony sprang off the couch and repeated the same checks that Erin had. He looked at her, distraught. “When? Just now?”
“Yes.” She told him how she had gotten up and was with him at the last breath.
They stood for a long moment with their arms around each other. Orphans together. Reunited by means of a severe mercy.
“I’ll call Marge,” Tony said in a low voice.
Erin went into the kitchen, put on the kettle for a morning cup of tea. She was very matter-of-fact. Not emotional. For a moment she wondered if something was wrong with her. Maybe she was dreaming all this.
No, she wasn’t dreaming. This was real. Her father was gone.
She realized she hadn’t cried. She thought it was because she had no more tears. They all had been squeezed out of her over the past two months. That was why this wasn’t a shock. Her father had inched his way to glory with one small breath followed by another until there were no more. She had journeyed beside him, shedding one tear followed by another until at this final moment, when he reached the destination, there were no more.
Not until Jack’s memorial service on Saturday did Erin cry. Her sons were all there. Sierra sat on one side of her, Mike on the other. Tony took on the role of greeter, extending the “right hand of fellowship” to every one of the eighty-five folks from Moss Cove who came to the service. Erin knew their father would have liked seeing his son take over the role of the church usher that way.
Her father also would have liked the way everyone drove through the afternoon mist and packed into Hidden Cottage, where they ate and talked about Jack. Paddy and some of his pals stayed on the deck under a tarp covering that Tony had rigged for the occasion to keep the autumn rain off them. Every time Erin looked out the kitchen window, the boys on the deck raised their bottles to her and gave her a nod.
Sylvia kept herself busy in the kitchen. At one point she slipped her arm around Erin and gave her a hug. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m doing okay. Thanks. I know my dad appreciated all your visits, Sylvia.”
“Least I could do. He was one of a kind, that’s for sure. I half expected Delores to show up at the memorial service. It would have been honoring to him if she had come. Did I tell you she called me to check in on him a couple of times? Up until a week ago, then she stopped calling.”
Erin debated how much she should divulge to Sylvia. Anything Erin said would be spread all around; so she resisted providing any further details. Then she realized that what she had to say about Delores needed to be spread around.
“She came to see my dad last week.” Erin selected her words carefully. “Her nephew brought her because she was too weak to drive.”
Sylvia lifted her reading glasses from the beaded chain around her neck and placed them on the bridge of her nose, as if trying to read the fine print in Erin’s expression.
“Delores has cancer. Stage four. I called her when Dad died and left a message with the details of the service. Her nephew called me back and said she would be with us today in her thoughts and prayers.”
Sylvia looked stunned. No one out newsed her on any topic.
“Delores stayed with my dad as long as she could. She made her peace with him, and I’ve made my peace with her. And, you know, Delores was right. We shouldn’t assume things about people.”
“I had no idea.” Sylvia shook her head and mumbled, “Well, shut my mouth and call me a crow.”
Erin had a feeling that would never happen.
Sylvia turned, to go spread the word, no doubt. But she stopped and asked, “Then who gets this place? Not
Delores.”
Erin nodded that, yes, the cottage was to go to Delores.
“Then if you don’t mind my asking, who is Delores going to leave it to?”
“I don’t know.”
Sylvia looked Erin up and down once more. “You certainly are a calm sea over all this. Do you know what this land is worth? This oceanfront property covers more than three acres.”
“I’ve seen the real estate report.”
“And you and your brother aren’t going to fight for it?”
Mike, Tony, and Erin had talked several hours about the possible scenarios. In the end, all three of them agreed that they wouldn’t contest whatever Delores listed in her will. She had put equal sweat and tears into the place while she lived there with their father. As his wife, it was her choice.
“No, we’re not going to fight about anything.”
Sylvia cocked her head. “You’re not?”
“No.”
“You know, I will say this for you O’Rileys. You make it seem like God could be real. You know what I’m saying? There’s a lot of strength and integrity in all of you. As for your father, he was something special, wasn’t he?”
All Erin could do was nod and offer a small smile.
Over the next week, more silent smiles came to her lips. On Sunday she hugged her brother good-bye and promised to visit him one day on Maui. On Monday she and Mike had their final breakfast at Jenny Bee’s Fish House and said good-bye to Jo and the rest of the crew.
Erin especially smiled when she closed the persimmon red door for the final time and took one last stroll out to the bench. The world was gray and shrouded in clouds. She couldn’t distinguish where the ocean ended on the horizon and where the sky began.
She stuck her hands into the pockets of her green fleece jacket because she knew her season here was ending as it had begun. In silence.
As Mike backed the car up the gravel driveway, she listened to the sound of the tiny pebbles under the tires. The car seemed to know its way along the two-lane winding road through the Narnia–like forest where brilliant touches of yellows and reds made it clear that autumn was on its way.