“No!” It was a cry of horror, not denial.
“It’s true, you know it is. God knew that it would take something as drastic as Eva’s death to prevent us from going away together, and now she’s dead.”
“Please . . . no . . .”
“Remember Papa’s words about honoring our parents? We’ve hurt too many people already. Both of our families. I can’t hurt my parents anymore. I can’t . . . I can’t go away with you.”
“Emma, I love you!”
“And I love you. But how can we start a new life together under such a weight of guilt? Eva is dead because of us.”
Patrick groaned and covered his eyes. “Ah, God . . . why? Why?”
“He won’t answer, Patrick. He didn’t answer any of my prayers for Eva. This pain we feel is His punishment. I only wish those two graves were ours. We’re the ones who sinned.”
“Let me hold you, Emma . . . please. Once more . . .”
We clung to each other in the darkness alongside the road while the wind swirled dead leaves around our feet. I don’t remember any moon that night, or any stars. I think the leaden sky must have wept along with us. I longed to find comfort in his embrace, but I didn’t.
Our lips met for the last time, a final kiss that would have to sustain me for the rest of my life. Then we turned from each other to walk separate paths.
Leaving Patrick was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I loved him. The longing never went away. I’ve heard of limbs that have been amputated that still ache with pain years later. That’s the way it was when God ripped Patrick from me. Such terrible pain . . . I feel it still.
The day after Patrick left me, I met the little Irish boy along the road as I walked home from work. Patrick had sent him to me with a book of our favorite poetry. Tucked inside, in Patrick’s handwriting, was a final poem:
To my beloved Emma,
When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
1980
Emma’s story brought tears to Suzanne’s eyes. The mysterious Patrick had sprung to life for a little while, and when the story was finished, she felt Emma’s loss. Suzanne busied herself with refilling their empty coffee cups in an attempt to disguise her tears, wondering which was the greater tragedy—a love that had never had a chance to flower, or a love that had blossomed for a while in a glorious burst of color, then died.
Patrick was the key to the entire mystery, she suddenly realized. If Karl Bauer wasn’t Grace’s real father, and if Emma had never loved any man except Patrick, then Patrick must be Grace’s real father. If she could find him, she would find the man who had loved Grace “more than life itself.” But how could she go about finding him?
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” Grace said, interrupting Suzanne’s thoughts.
“Me? No, I’m sorry, Mom. I was a million miles away. What was your question?”
“I said that I didn’t want any more coffee unless it’s decaffeinated, but you went ahead and refilled my cup anyway.”
“It’s decaf,” Sue said. “I was just thinking about something else.”
Why was she so obsessed with the past? Was she using it as a diversion, the way women use soap operas to distract themselves from their own problems? No, she simply couldn’t escape the conviction that if she solved the mysteries of the past, it would help her unscramble the mess that she and Jeff had created. Like the wooden nesting dolls Emma had once mentioned, if Suzanne could make sense of the lives of the women before her, her own life might fit into its proper place.
“Mom,” she said suddenly, “I’d like to go along with you tomorrow afternoon when you take Grandma to her friend’s funeral, all right?”
Grace’s carefully groomed eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Sure. But why on earth would you want to do that?”
“The funeral is in your old Irish neighborhood, right? I’d like to see what it looks like.”
Before Grace or Emma had a chance to respond, the doorbell rang.
“That’s probably your father,” Grace said. She and Emma followed Suzanne into the living room to greet him. A few hours ago Suzanne had been angry with her father and would have greeted him coldly, but after retelling her own story and listening to Emma’s, all of her anger had drained away.
“I’m sorry I’m so late,” he said. “It’s been a grueling night.” He seemed strangely subdued, his usual bluster and self-assurance gone. Grace noticed it immediately.
“What’s wrong, Stephen?” She eased his sport coat from his drooping shoulders and helped him loosen his tie. He exhaled wearily.
“I’ve been a pediatrician for thirty years, but I still can’t get used to losing a child.” He ran his hand over his short, bristly hair and sighed again. “In the end, when I’ve done everything I can, when death is inevitable, I often wish I’d become a minister instead of a physician.”
“I’m so sorry,” Grace murmured. She seemed to know exactly what he needed, the right touch, the right amount of sympathy, the right words. Suzanne watched as her mother waited on her father, reheating his dinner, choosing the kind of salad dressing he liked, rubbing his tired shoulders after he was seated at the dining room table. Suzanne had always disparaged her mother for giving him such lavish attention, but tonight she felt differently. Tonight she couldn’t forget her grandmother’s words—“I would give anything to have Patrick beside me again . . . to grow old together.” Suzanne wiped another tear.
“Thanks for saving me some supper,” her father said. But as he pushed it around on his plate, she saw that his appetite was no better than the rest of theirs had been. He looked up at their somber faces, glanced at the broken dinner plate, and said, “I’m really sorry, Sue. What did I miss?”
“Suzanne was telling us about her career, among other things,” Emma said. She sat down at the table across from him and smiled. “Stephen, tell us what you think of your daughter and what she has accomplished.”
Suzanne was suddenly afraid. “Don’t put Daddy on the spot, Grandma. He probably doesn’t feel much like talking.”
Stephen looked from one woman to the other again, then leaned back in his chair. “I’ve never been very good at saying what I feel. You understand that, don’t you, Grace? I’m a scientist. I’ve been taught to analyze data, to seek solutions—not to pick apart my emotions. But tonight you’ve caught me at a vulnerable time. I had no solution for that child’s cancer, and that’s a very hard thing for me to accept. I was thinking about my own kids as I drove here—how I didn’t tell them often enough that I loved them. It didn’t matter so much with Bobby—he and I are a lot alike, he understood. But you’ve always been different, Suzanne, not like your mother or me.”
Her father looked at her, and she saw the sorrow in his eyes. “The truth is, I’ve always envied Jeff,” he said. “He was so spontaneous about expressing what he felt—I’ll never forget that piece he painted about the Vietnam protests.
He was comfortable with his feelings, and he understood you in a way that I never did. I also think that Jeff has changed a lot in the past few years. Maybe he and I understand each other better now—but you and he have lost something in the process. Watching what’s happened between the two of you these past few months has been like watching a slow death—like the death I witnessed tonight—and both losses are especially tragic because like that child, your marriage was so young and fresh an
d alive just a short time ago. As I said, it’s very hard to accept. I want to do something, solve something, change things . . . and I can’t.”
Suzanne’s tears rolled down her face as her father spoke. He rarely shared so much of himself, and she accepted his words and his willing vulnerability as a precious gift. He paused for a moment and looked up at Emma. “I haven’t answered your question, have I? You asked me what I thought about Sue’s career. . . .” He turned to face Suzanne again, and she saw his love for her shining in his hazel eyes. “I don’t know much about your work, I’m sorry . . . but I do know that I’m very, very proud of you.”
Suzanne rose from her chair, and for the first time in many years, she embraced her father.
TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
Grace pulled her car beneath the canopy of the funeral home the next day and waited while Emma climbed from the car. “Are you sure you don’t want us to come inside with you, Mother?” she asked.
Emma waved her away impatiently. “I’m not a helpless old lady yet! And why would you want to sit through Katie Hogan’s memorial service? You didn’t even know her. I’ll get a ride with someone to the cemetery. You can pick me up in front of St. Michael’s in . . . let’s say two hours.” She strode off, carrying the two bird-of-paradise flowers she had bought at a florist’s shop near Birch Grove. The bright orange flowers created a vivid splash of color against Emma’s gray suit.
“All right, we’ve got two hours,” Suzanne said.
“To do what?” Grace asked. “I still don’t understand why you wanted to come along to take Grandma to a funeral, for heaven’s sake. How interesting can that be to warrant an afternoon off work?”
“Hearing your story made me curious to see your old neighborhood. That’s why I asked you to bring Grandma’s old photograph album along. I thought it would be fun to compare how it looked then and now. I’ve never seen the old apartment where you lived with the Mulligan sisters. As far back as I can recall, Grandma always lived in the apartment house she just moved from.”
“That’s because she moved there right after your father and I were married. Stephen insisted. The Mulligans’ place was too run-down. He bought the other apartment building and moved Mother into it.”
“Daddy bought the building?”
“Please don’t tell her. He knew she wouldn’t take charity, so it was the only way he could get her into a decent, affordable apartment.”
“Did he buy Birch Grove too?” Suzanne’s voice dripped sarcasm. Grace ignored it.
“Not exactly. But he did make a substantial donation. Where do you want to go first?”
Suzanne raked her dark hair from her eyes. “Start with your old street. I want to see Booty’s store and the cemetery near the church. We have two hours to find Patrick. He’s the key to this mystery.”
“Oh, Suzanne. I hope you’re joking. Why has the past become such an obsession with you lately? First you wanted to find my ‘real’ father, now you want to find Patrick?”
“They are one and the same,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m convinced that Patrick is your real father.”
“But that’s ridiculous! Their relationship ended in 1918. I was born in 1925. There is no reason to believe that he’s my father.”
“If they loved each other as much as Grandma said, it’s inevitable that they would meet again.”
“Have you been reading Victorian romance novels, Suzanne? You’re usually so pragmatic.”
“Humor me. The key here is the fact that when Grandma left Bremenville she moved to the Irish-Catholic section of the city.”
“She was hiding from Karl Bauer.”
“No, Mom. He found her, remember? Aunt Vera said it was Karl who gave them Grandma’s address in the city. That means he must have known where to look for her. He must have known she would go straight to Patrick. And since she came to this neighborhood, Patrick must have lived here.”
“Oh, brother!” Grace muttered as she steered her car out of the funeral home’s parking lot. She was starting to regret letting her daughter come along. “Your analysis sounds very logical, Sue, but life itself seldom is.”
“Someone had to have been helping Grandma. Someone who also filled your coal box and paid for your groceries. Remember, it was 1924 and Grandma had no job skills. How would a pregnant woman find work? Doesn’t it make sense that she would seek out Patrick’s help after leaving Karl? He would help her, even if he was married to someone else. He loved her.”
“This is all wild speculation,” Grace said as she waited for a traffic light. “Besides, I asked your father about Karl Bauer having the mumps, and he said only fifteen to thirty-five percent of mumps cases affect the reproductive system. Even then, he said there might be impaired fertility but that true sterility is very rare. Karl could have been my father, regardless of what his adopted son said.”
“Then why didn’t his second wife ever get pregnant? Why did they adopt two sons?”
“And another thing—Mother was pregnant with me when she left Karl, right? How did the mysterious Patrick get her pregnant if he was living here in the city and she lived in Bremenville? It doesn’t follow logically at all.”
“I’ll bet it will make sense once we figure out who Patrick is. Maybe he traveled to Bremenville regularly on business, or maybe he had relatives there. I’m guessing that Patrick was one of your five ‘fathers.’They each helped you and Grandma in one way or another.”
Grace drove around a corner and slowed as she pointed to a shabby stone building in need of a new roof. A sign out front read Neighborhood Health Clinic.
“That used to be Peace Memorial Church,” she told Suzanne. “That’s where I became a Christian years ago. My girlfriend, Frances Weaver, lived about two blocks up the street from the church.” Grace felt a wave of sorrow as she gazed at the boarded storefronts, aging tenements, and crumbling side-walks. The neat Irish-Catholic bungalows of her childhood, with their lace curtains and flowers in the windows, had sadly disappeared. “I can’t believe how run-down everything is,” she said, “and I thought it was pretty bad during the depression. Maybe we’d better not linger too long. I would hate to get mugged.” She maneuvered the car through the alien, yet familiar streets.
“St. Michael’s Catholic Church,” Suzanne said, reading the sign. “Was that Father O’Duggan’s church?”
Grace braked, catching her breath at the sight of the old gray stone church. Her emotional reaction surprised her. Seeing Father O’Duggan’s church was almost like seeing him again.
“Yes, that was his church. It hasn’t changed very much at all. And that used to be the rectory, next door—oh my, it’s a women’s shelter now? Well, that’s what he wanted. He always said the house was much too big for one priest. Around this corner on King Street is where—oh, the Mulligans’ house is gone . . . that bar is new . . . Booty’s store is gone too. It used to be right where that vacant lot is.” Grace pulled the car over to the curb and surveyed a row of shabby storefronts and post-war brick bungalows that had been built after her mother had moved away. Even these “new” houses looked sadly in need of repair. She felt an odd sense of loss. “Well, that’s all there is to see of the old neighborhood,” she said. “Where to now?”
“Go back to St. Michael’s church. We’re going to take a walk through the cemetery.”
“Do I dare ask why?”
“I want to find Booty Higgins’ grave. He must have had a very strong connection with you and Grandma if he fed you during the depression. Booty is obviously a nickname, so it’s not going to say ‘Booty’ on the tombstone.”
“And you think maybe his name was Patrick?”
“Grandma said Patrick was dead, remember? And Booty died when you were thirteen.”
“I can’t imagine Booty Higgins reading poetry!” Grace laughed to disguise how nervous she really felt. Suzanne’s probing was starting to get to her, upsetting her equilibrium. “Booty wore a grungy apron and stood behind a counter a
ll day in a dingy, smoke-filled store. If there was a poetic side to him, I never saw it. But who knows, I was only a child.”
She found a parking space across the street from the church and they climbed out, locking the car. Suzanne fed quarters into the meter. Grace felt the years rolling backward, the past returning to life as they crossed the street and entered the cemetery.
“Do you know where he was buried,” Suzanne asked, “or do we need to look it up in the office?”
“I think I can find it. I remember it was along the fence on this side, not too far back. Mother and I used to walk through here on Sunday afternoons, and we usually visited Booty’s grave.”
“See? That must mean something!”
“It means that the cemetery was the closest thing we had to a park. Booty’s grave is this way. I remember there was another huge marker with a stone bench nearby that just read, ‘Higgins.’”
Trees that had been saplings in her youth were full-grown now, but Grace surprised herself and Suzanne by walking almost directly to Booty’s grave on the first try. The large tombstone that read “Higgins” was easy to find. Near it lay Booty and his wife, Sheila.
“Ian,” Grace said, reading his name aloud. “That’s right, his name was Ian Higgins.”
Suzanne’s disappointment was almost as great as Grace’s relief. “Are you sure this is his grave?”
“Yes, he died shortly after my thirteenth birthday. And look—the marker says May 29, 1938. And I know his wife’s name was Sheila.”
“One down, four to go,” Suzanne said with a sigh. Her steps were much slower as they began walking back to the car. “But I’m not giving up. What about O’Brien? He sounds the most like Patrick, with his zest for adventure. Grandma said Patrick didn’t want to live an ordinary life, remember? That certainly fits with an outlaw like O’Brien. What was his first name?”