Love Remains

by Sarah M. Eden

  There had been nothing excessively cruel about the song, but its message had been clear.

  She was not welcome.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Either you build the fire as I asked, Finbarr, or you don’t eat today.” Cecily would’ve put the O’Connors’ one-time factory foreman to shame with the unbending authority of her tone. Tavish hadn’t expected a row first thing Monday morning, but perhaps he should have. “If you think I am not in earnest, then, please, continue with your stubborn refusal. Your stomach will eventually tell you how very resolute I am.”

  Cecily and Finbarr stood in front of the unlit stove, neither seeming the least willing to budge. Tavish sat at the table, near a basket Cecily had brought with her. He wasn’t certain what was in it. Torture devices? A collection of poisons?

  “I can’t build a fire if I can’t see the wood,” Finbarr insisted.

  “I’ve built any number of fires, and I can’t see the wood.”

  Finbarr’s frown grew ever fiercer. “I don’t need you telling me what to do.”

  “Denying the lad food is cruel,” Tavish said.

  Cecily spun about on her cane and very nearly faced him. “He doesn’t eat if he doesn’t build the fire. This is not negotiable.”

  He should have known better than to argue with the Queen. “Your command is my . . . command.”

  Finbarr dragged himself away and sat in his usual chair near the empty fireplace, muttering something about traitorous brothers and overbearing women.

  Tavish rose from the table and crossed to the stove where Cecily still stood. “How long is the lad meant to go hungry?”

  “Until he complies.”

  Not exactly bubbling over with empathy, this lass. “And are you and I to suffer along with him? Without a fire in the stove, we’ll not manage to eat much ourselves.”

  “Then you had best begin praying that your stubborn brother comes to his senses quickly.”

  ’Twasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. “I’m to suffer for Finbarr’s mule-headedness, am I?”

  “Well, you are your brother’s keeper.” There was a great deal of cheek in her remark.

  Tavish leaned in a little closer and assumed a bantering tone. “You’ll not make me starve, will you? You’d not be so cruel.”

  “I have my suspicions that you are casting me a flirtatious look.” She leaned in close and whispered. “That works only when the recipient can see it.”

  “What if I describe it to you? I’ll be certain to mention how ruggedly handsome I am and how m’ eyes sparkle in the lantern light.”

  “No good, Tavish. I already picture you as an unkempt ogre living under a bridge.”

  “Do you, now?” He couldn’t help some amusement at that. “And what did I do to earn that particular mental portrait?”

  She turned toward the table, and, after only two attempts at finding the basket, caught hold of its handle. “You have it backwards. Everyone starts as an ogre. What a person earns is not being imagined as one.”

  He wasn’t the most handsome man in all the world, but he’d been told he was a pleasant sight. He’d not realized before how much he’d depended on that to make a good first impression.

  “Am I likely to fall more toward the ogre side of things if I stroll on out to the barn and ask the animals to share a bite or two of hay with me?” He leaned against the sink, arms folded across his chest. “If they’ll be generous, I’ll not starve, and Finbarr’ll still have an unlit stove to attend to.”

  His teasing didn’t pull the tiniest bit of mirth from her. She was going to be a bigger challenge than most.

  “I have something better than hay, if you’re interested.”

  “Better than hay? You’ve caught my attention.”

  She pulled back the dishrag tucked into the basket, revealing several paper-wrapped bundles and three large glass jars. Tavish didn’t know what was in any of them. He hazarded a guess.

  “Witch’s brew?”

  “I generally save witch’s brew for the third or fourth week of lessons. It is a special treat for my very best students.”

  Quick-witted. He liked that about her. All the O’Connors enjoyed lightning-fast banter.

  “What we have here”—she set her hand just over the packages—“are sandwiches made fresh—” Her mouth pursed in thought. “Unless I have the basket backwards.” She lightly touched the paper. “No. I was right. These are the sandwiches. In the jars are soups, which, of course, will be cold if our friend Finbarr doesn’t get around to lighting the stove.”

  “Cold soup.” Tavish summoned his most pitiful tone. “That is what comes of being one’s brother’s keeper.”

  She still didn’t smile, but she did look the smallest bit amused. Her Majesty seemed very nearly human, as she had in the moments before the song at the céilí.

  “Did Ma send the food over?” he asked.

  “No. I made it,” she said. “And I’d wager you are now giving me a look of profound doubt at the thought of a blind person cooking edible food.”

  How had she known that? “I’d say my expression is more one of surprise than doubt.”

  “And now you have adopted an, ‘I’m lying to you about my previous expression’ expression.”

  She kept a fellow on his toes, that was for certain. “For a woman who can’t see very well, you see very well.”

  She pulled a sandwich from the basket and handed it to him. “When I first started working as a teacher for the blind, my vision was much better than it is now. I simply memorized the usual progression of expressions.”

  “You cooked these?”

  “One does not cook a sandwich, Tavish.” She laid the dishrag over the basket again.

  “You are a great deal more fun to talk with than I expected when you first came.”

  “Likewise.” Cecily stepped away.

  Tavish caught her hand, stopping her departure. “If I ask a question, will you promise not to prickle up at me?”

  “No.”

  The answer was so unexpected, he laughed out loud. “You’ll not allow me to ask a question?”

  “No, I will not promise not to prickle up.”

  What a challenge she was. He glanced toward the fireplace where Finbarr sat with his back to them. “Did you really cook these soups with your poor sight?”

  “I have taught people with no sight whatsoever to cook and clean and dress themselves and work their jobs and live their lives.” She set a jar of soup on the table. “My vision isn’t entirely gone, so accomplishing this is a little easier for me than it is for many of my students.” She looked directly into his eyes, or at least appeared to. “Now, if I ask you a question, will you promise not to prickle up?”

  “No.”

  She gave a quick nod of acceptance. “Do you truly want your brother to regain his independence?” She had lowered her voice, no doubt wanting to keep the question from reaching Finbarr’s ears.

  How could she doubt that? “I have spent every moment of the last year attempting to give him back his life. Yet you question whether I want him to improve?”

  His terse tone didn’t ruffle her in the least. As calm as ever, she said, “I am only trying to understand.”

  “Then understand this: I love my brother. His welfare is this family’s greatest concern just now. And that, Cecily Attwater, is saying something.”

  She made a sound of pondering, but said nothing as she moved confidently away from him toward the spot where Finbarr sat, her posture stiff and straight. He’d intended to tell her when she came today that he was sorry for her overly cold reception at the céilí. He’d not managed to do so before setting her back up. Again.

  Why was it their interactions always seemed to end in one or both of them being put out with the other? ’Twas a very good thing he’d decided weeks ago to give up on women; he’d clearly lost his touch with them.

  The door closed behind Tavish on his way to see to his daily work, no doubt. Just as well. Havin
g Tavish question her methods at every turn would not help her make progress. What she couldn’t decide was whether his objections came more from doubt in her as a teacher or from distaste for her as an Englishwoman.

  Cecily knew the O’Connor family wanted Finbarr to succeed, so there had to be a reason they placed their dislike of the English ahead of their hopes for their brother and son. She hadn’t expected Finbarr to be fully convinced of her yet, but she’d never had a family go to such lengths to make certain she knew how displeased they were with her presence. Even if Finbarr suddenly became converted to her methods, she couldn’t fight his family much longer without being forced to admit defeat. His recovery depended so much on them.

  She would simply have to ponder whilst continuing her attempt at lessons. She set a pair of boots she’d borrowed from Tavish on the end table near Finbarr’s chair.

  Before she could give an explanation, Finbarr muttered into the silence between them. “Did you really make the soup?”

  “I don’t know why everyone finds that so surprising.”

  “Because you’re broken.” His words were under-enunciated to the point of being almost indiscernible. “Broken people can’t do anything.”

  “Call me ‘broken’ one more time, Finbarr O’Connor, and I will belt you in the gob so hard your teeth will be falling out your ears.”

  Oh, how she wished she could see the shock that was, no doubt, registering on his face. His tone when he spoke next confirmed her suspicions. “‘Belt me in the gob’? Do the English say that?”

  “I borrowed the phrase from your brother Ian,” she said. “But the threat stands. You continually speak of those with limited sight as worthless, and I have extremely limited sight. No one calls me useless. No one. You can think it of me all you want, but don’t you ever say it. Am I understood?”

  He made a sound deep in his throat, one she took as agreement. The rule was not at all about her feelings but rather his need to stop viewing himself so poorly.

  “Now, here is your assignment for the day—other than building a fire in the stove. On the end table beside you is a pair of boots and a pair of laces.” She crossed to the windows and snapped the curtains closed. “Your job is to lace the boots.”

  “It’s too dark in here,” he said. “There’s no fire, and you just pulled the curtains.”

  “Very good.”

  “It’s not very good. If there were more light, I could see some.”

  She knew that all too well. “If you can manage the task in blackness, you can manage it in the light.”

  A shifting of clothes and a creak of chair legs told her he’d sat up once more. “That’s not fair.”

  “Life isn’t fair. The sooner you stop expecting it to be, the easier that fact will be to accept.” She would need a firm, determined approach with him, at least until he began trying. “Lace the boots and build the fire. That’s all that is asked of you today.”

  “How can I lace them? I can’t see the eyelets.”

  Good. He was addressing the problem. “That’s true. But you do have four other fully functioning senses you can rely on.”

  He sighed in exactly the way one would expect a seventeen-year-old to. “I can’t hear the eyelets.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend tasting them either.”

  His clothes rustled against the seat again; he was slouching most likely. “You mean feel the eyelets.”

  “That seems to be the best course of action.” As she walked past the end table, she nudged the boots closer to him. “Now get to work.”

  “I don’t like you,” he grumbled.

  “I know.” Her students, to whom she dedicated herself, for whom she worried and cheered and hoped, often hated her at first. Some never stopped hating her. But as she and Finbarr had established a moment ago, life was hardly fair. “I will be over here at the kitchen table when you’ve finished lacing the boots.”

  She pulled out the kitchen chair and sat. She’d laid out her items when she first arrived, knowing she would likely have a long wait. Her fingers ran along the edge of her neat pile of paper and the sealed letter resting on top. Just to the left was a box of matches. Above that was a lantern, ready and waiting.

  She struck a match and lit the lantern wick. A dull light illuminated her small space.

  “That sounded like a match,” Finbarr said.

  Cecily silently cheered. He was learning to distinguish sounds to which fully-sighted people paid little attention. “I am lighting a lantern so I can do my work.”

  “Why do you get a lantern, but I don’t?” He sounded as though she’d done him a great injustice.

  “Because I laced my own boots and built a fire this morning,” she answered. “Do that, and you can have a light today as well.”

  She was answered with another very seventeen-year-old sigh. He was at a tough enough age without the added weight he carried.

  Cecily pulled the lantern close. Warmth immediately suffused the air directly beside her. Burns were always a risk when one needed as much light as possible, but its welcome glow illuminated the table top. She could see her neat stack of paper, her unopened letter, her pen and capped bottle of ink. None of the items were as clear and detailed as they’d once been, but there was comfort in the dim sight of them.

  She opened and unfolded her letter, then held the page as close to the light as she could without touching the paper to the hot glass. She leaned in closer.

  The muddled mess turned into a very fuzzy collection of letters.

  Dear M—

  She couldn’t make out the rest of the salutation, though she could guess at it. Dear Miss Attwater. The letter was from little Theodore Calhoun, whose parents had insisted on formal address. She hadn’t minded. In the end, they’d become good friends.

  I am leaving—

  No, that wasn’t right.

  I am learning to cool—

  The word wasn’t cool. She studied the text more closely.

  I am learning to cook on the stove. Mother says I am—

  The next few words blurred. She tilted her head a bit to the side. Sometimes that helped.

  But the letters still wouldn’t come in to focus. She pulled the lantern so close that the heat was uncomfortable against her cheek. The rest of that second sentence remained unintelligible. She tried the next line with no better luck. The line after that contained a passage about Father and a great deal of hair on the quilt. That made no sense, but she couldn’t decipher enough to fill in what she was missing.

  She brushed away a trickle of sweat from her forehead. Her face had likely turned red from the lantern heat. Another try at reading the letter convinced her that she’d never manage it, at least not in this dim kitchen with nothing but a lantern.

  Theodore had never been particularly good about writing in large lettering. She’d either need to convince his parents to work with him on his letters, or she’d need someone to read his letters to her. His vision had not been far enough gone to require him to learn Braille.

  The Braille system of point writing had been the one preferred at her school. She’d learned several others, but preferred Braille as well and always offered to teach her students who would otherwise be left illiterate. Most eagerly agreed. A few didn’t care to learn a new alphabet.

  She closed her eyes and listened intently for the sound of Finbarr setting to his task. His clothes rustled. Perhaps he was at least making an attempt. Would he be willing to learn Braille? Did he even need raised lettering? He hadn’t spoken in enough detail about his remaining sight for her to determine if he was able to see written text.

  “I’m finished.” Finbarr sounded utterly unimpressed with his task and himself.

  She pushed away from the table and crossed to where he yet sat. Her fingers found the boots on the side table, both sitting askew. He would eventually learn the importance of being very particular about how and where he placed things.

  She ran her fingers along the laces, matching eyelets as s
he went. Predictably, he’d done a haphazard job—probably hadn’t really tried. A boy of his age must have laced dozens of boots over the years. Losing his sight made the task a bit trickier, but not so much he’d do this poorly.

  She hooked her finger around the first of the crisscrossing laces and pulled them out.

  “What are you doing?” Again, Finbarr was listening closely enough to make some sense of what he couldn’t see.

  “You have been afforded the opportunity to try again.” She continued unlacing. “This time, pay more attention.”

  “I laced them like you told me to. I’m not doing it again.”

  “Build a fire. Lace your boots. Those are your assignments. Both must be done with care and attention to detail. Especially building the fire.” She set the laces on top of the boots. “Lace them again. You may not get it completely right this time, either; it will take some practice. But I do expect your next attempt to be better. Much better.”

  His chair abruptly scraped against the floor. “I’ll not do it again.” His voice came from higher up than a moment ago.

  “You will.” The flare of temper was not unexpected. She had long ago become adept at maintaining her calm. “And when you get hungry enough, you’ll also build a fire. Knowing the potential dangers of fires, and in light of your unwillingness to be careful with something as innocuous as shoelaces, I suggest you not attempt the fire until Tavish returns to keep an eye on you.”

  “Don’t talk to me as if I’m a baby,” he said tightly.

  “Then do not act like one.”

  “You can lace the boots yourself.” The boots thudded to the floor shoved off the end table.

  As she always did when a student lashed out, she kept still and spoke evenly. “In my experience, tossing things about makes locating them significantly harder. Feeling about the floor on your hands and knees is probably your best approach.”

  “I am not going to crawl on the ground just because you want me to lace boots like an imbecile.”

  She crossed back to the kitchen table, trusting he’d hear her footsteps growing fainter. If he knew she wasn’t overly concerned, his temper might cool off a little. “The sooner you find the boots, the sooner you can finish your first task for the day.”