Gabriel turned and looked at his father for a moment. He blinked, making a tear race down his scruffy, unshaven cheek. “Because you would’ve been disappointed in me, Da. You’ve always been disappointed in me. If you’ve said it once, you’ve said it a thousand times, ‘I’m fair disappointed in you, Gabriel.’” Imitating his father’s deeper voice made him take a heaving, shaky breath, then he went on, “Until Sean went to university, he was the only one you cared about. The only one who did right in your eyes. I know you’ve wished I were him, Da, but I’m not. I’m Gabriel. I’m screwed-up Gabriel. If there’s a wrong turn to be made, rest assured, I’ll make it.” Sitting back down, Gabriel put his head in his hands and began to weep quietly.
Seamus came to his son’s side and pulled him tightly against him. “Whatever you feel, me boy, nothing you’ve said just now is true.” Gabriel tried to push his father away, but Seamus took his son’s face roughly in his hands. “Listen to me. I have never wished you were anyone other than who you are. Look at this big chest. Does it not contain a heart large enough to love five sons? Can these great lungs not swell with pride enough for the lot of you? Damn it, Gabe, you have been a thick-headed lad from the day the doctor smacked your bum, but I’ve never...never wanted you to be anyone but my Gabriel.”
Looking into his father’s eyes, tears streaming freely down his face, Gabriel swallowed hard. Difficult as it was, he couldn’t go on blaming his father. He sniffed back his pride and huskily whispered, “I’ve messed up real bad this time, Da. Tess and I have a baby comin’, but we can’t get married because she doesn’t have the courage to stand against her father. I want Tess and our child more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole bloody life.”
“Do you want them more than you want the drink? I’ve spent twenty-five years trying to keep Pádraig sober, Son. I can’t ’bide you following in your uncle’s footsteps.”
“It just makes me forget, Da. It makes Tess, the baby, and her father fade to the back of me mind for a wee while. If only Mr. McLaughlin would let Tess and me get married, then everything would be all right again.”
Seamus sighed, relieved but not totally convinced his son could walk away from what might have already become an addiction. Only time and prayers could answer that question. “Tess’s father has agreed to the marriage. He was worried how you were going to provide for her and the wean. And understandably, he’s worried about the drinkin’. But I explained your new circumstances to him.”
“What new circumstances?” Gabriel asked curiously.
“I’m making you a full partner in Kells Down, Gabe. Seeing that your older brother’s interests have fallen elsewhere, it will be rightfully yours one day anyhow.”
“Da, are you…are you serious?”
Seamus nodded. “You’ve a lot of proving yourself in your path ahead, Gabriel, but I have faith in you. Don’t let me down, Son.”
Gabriel shook his head slowly, his father’s words gradually sinking in. “I won’t, Da…I won’t.”
Sean appeared at the entrance of the parlor, looking panicked.
“What’s wrong with you?” his father asked. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Worse, Da, much worse.” He looked at his brother. “Dr. Middleton just telephoned. Toby Patterson, the boy from Norbury who spoke to you, has run away. I need your help, Gabriel.”
“It’s full dark out,” Gabriel said, coming readily to his feet. “The wee lad must have been desperate to take off at this hour.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Sean replied. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 15
With Gabriel in the passenger seat and his father and Catie, both of whom refused to stay behind, in the back, Sean drove to the outskirts of downtown.
“This isn’t the way to Norbury,” said Catie, lowering her head and looking out the front window.
“I know, but I have a hunch.” After Toby had broken his silence with Gabriel, Sean read and reread the child’s file, hoping to find an answer to Toby’s strange proclamation: “I’m waiting on my daddy.” Benches were the only common denominator. Toby’s father claimed to have found his son, bleeding, stabbed, and near death on a park bench near their home. The murder took place on a Monday. On every Monday since Sean had arrived, Toby Patterson had made his way to a very similar bench in front of the school’s administration building where he locked his arms around his knees and rocked until someone came for him. Curious, Sean had even driven to the public housing development the family had lived in and located the bench that Toby most likely had been sitting on when his father found him. But seeing the damned thing didn’t give him any revelation. None of it made any sense to Sean. He could only hope that, if they were able to find the child, Toby might speak to Gabriel again. It was certainly worth a try.
Sean glanced in the rearview mirror and, catching his wife’s gaze, held it until necessity forced his attention back to the road. In the dimly lit car, her eyes were as emerald green as the Irish Sea. Her eyes had a funny way of looking either bluer or greener depending on what she wore, or the light, or the time of day. He loved that about her eyes — unpredictable and forever changing like the person who owned them. He inadvertently sighed, knowing he owed Catie an apology.
When Sean returned home from the police station and discovered his father had arrived in Savannah, unexpected and unannounced, he realized that keeping parts of his life from his wife wasn’t only wrong, it was impossible. Life has a nasty habit of crashing down around you every now and then. Being his wife, Catie would have no choice but to be caught in the falling debris. But to Sean’s surprise, she had been a great help — an ally even. Whatever Catie had said to his father before he and Gabriel returned had definitely made the situation better. Maybe having a daughter-in-law was making his old man go soft. He glanced in the rearview mirror once more and saw his father’s profile in the shadows of the passing streetlights. No, he decided, Seamus Kelly was just a father learning to parent men rather than boys — no easy task for a man used to having the last say on matters concerning his family.
Sean turned into the entrance of the complex. Like most public housing back home, the units were small, monotone, and depressing looking. Front doors were less than two outstretched arms apart, allowing little to no privacy between neighbors. Sean’s father had grown up in one of the Catholic housing estates near downtown Belfast. Sean had sought out the place while at Queen’s University, hoping to better understand his da: where he’d come from, what made him tick. Rows of narrow, attached townhouses were surrounded by a 12-foot tall, chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, separating the Protestants and Catholics. Like all the other university co-eds who were fresh to the big city of Belfast, Sean wanted to see those fences come down. His class, like so many before them, vowed to make a difference in Northern Ireland. As Sean started back to his car that day, a wee lad ran over to the fence and spit at a girl on the Catholic side. “Hey, there…don’t do that, mate!” he yelled, but the boy stuck his tongue out at him and ran inside, calling for his mammy. Disheartened, Sean climbed back inside his old Rover and drove back to campus. Maybe his father was right…maybe Peace was nothing but political rhetoric.
Booming music snapped Sean out of his thoughts, and he noticed a few parked cars lining the street. Men, who leaned against the cars, smoking cigarettes, stared curiously at the new arrivals. Though they looked innocent enough, Sean instinctively told his passengers to lock their doors as he drove past the men to a dilapidated playground, which was set a distance from the apartments.
When Sean stopped the Wagoneer, the beam from the headlights illuminated his suspicion. Toby Patterson was sitting on the bench, rocking back and forth. Thank God. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Catie, Da, stay in the car, aye. We don’t want to frighten him.” Sean looked over at Gabriel and turned off the engine. “Come on, Brother. Let’s give this a go.”
“Seany,” Gabriel whispered, hesitating. “I need to tell ye someth
ing.”
“Now?” Sean asked impatiently.
“Aye, now.” Gabriel looked at his brother. “I’m going to be a father.”
Sean’s eyes widened, and he turned quickly to his father. Slowly, his da’s head bobbed in answer to Sean’s unspoken question.
Before Sean could respond, Gabriel went on, “I’ll be needin’ you and the wee missus back there to be the lad’s godparents. That is…if you’ll accept. I couldn’t trust the responsibility to anyone else.”
Though in complete shock, Sean softly replied, “O-of course, Gabe. I’d be honored.” He reached out and put his hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Con-congratulations, mate.”
Gabriel nodded solemnly. “Thanks. Now, let’s sort out this wee fellah. Shall we?”
Still reeling from his brother’s news, Sean stood back and watched as Gabriel strolled causally over to Toby Patterson. Gabriel a father! Although he didn’t hear them get out of the car, Catie and his father came quietly up beside him. His wife hugged his arm securely against her body, which made Sean glad she was there.
“Toby,” they all heard Gabriel call out, as if he were speaking to an old friend. “How is it, mate?”
“Gabriel? Is that you?” Toby stopped rocking and blinked in disbelief.
Sean marveled at having finally heard the child’s voice, small and a bit weak sounding.
“Like I told you before, the one and only.” Gabriel sat down on Toby’s left side, hoping to keep his swollen eye out of view. It didn’t work.
“What happened to your eye?” Toby asked.
Gabriel reached up self-consciously. “Been fighting bad guys,” he told the child, smiling. “Sometimes they fight back.”
“Oh.”
“So, em, what are you doing out here, mate?” Gabriel asked.
“I’m waiting on my daddy. Will he be coming soon?”
Gabriel wasn’t sure how to respond, so he was honest. “I don’t know.”
Toby’s face crumpled, and his eyes brimmed with tears. “Is my daddy mad at me?”
Now wise to Toby’s heartbreaking story, Gabriel knew he was way out of his element here. This kid needed a shrink…not Gabe Kelly. Problem was; the kid wasn’t talking to shrinks. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t talking to anyone except Gabe Kelly. “No,” he plowed forward, figuring he couldn’t muddle up the wee lad more than he already was. “I promise, mate, he’s not mad at you. He just can’t come right now. He’s…see your dad’s…well, he just can’t come right now.” Gabriel had a sudden stab of panic about this being a father business.
“Does he hate me?” From the headlights, Gabriel could see that tears streaked the child’s flaming red cheeks.
“No,” Gabriel said again, surer this time. “He doesn’t hate you. He loves you. Fathers don’t hate their sons.” He leaned close to the child and pointed over to his own father. “Toby, you see that big man over there?” Toby squinted into the beam of the headlights and nodded. “That’s me dad, and he came all the way across the ocean to get me even though I’ve messed up quite a bit of late. That’s how it is with fathers. They love their sons no matter what. Your dad loves you too. He just can’t come right now.”
“Your father?” Toby asked, looking stunned.
“Aye.” Gabriel grinned. “A right ox, eh?”
“But…I thought Mama sent you. I th-thought you were an angel.”
“No, mate,” Gabriel chuckled. “I’m just a man.”
All at once, Toby became agitated. He locked his arms around his knees and began a frenzy of rocking and humming—not a tune but a droning whine. Gabriel put his hand on the child’s back and tried to console him, but Toby began frantically hitting his ears to keep from listening. Gabriel looked at Sean hopelessly.
Sean rushed forward and grabbed Toby’s hands to keep him from hurting himself. The boy’s skin was hot—extremely hot. “Damn,” Sean hissed, scooping Toby up into his arms. “He’s burning up with fever. Gabe, can you drive to the hospital?”
“Sure.” Gabriel ran ahead and opened the door to the back seat so Sean and Toby could slide in.
Catie got in on the opposite side, and Sean looked worriedly at her.
“Children can be prone to having high fevers.” She squeezed his hand in reassurance then brushed Toby’s long and sweaty blonde strands from his forehead, shushing the child like a mother might do. “At least the twins and Eliza Jane are.”
“Which way?” Gabriel asked.
“Turn left at the end of the street then get on the motorway,” Sean replied then yelled, “Wrong side of the road!”
Gabriel swerved the Jeep into to the right-hand lane, violently shifting his passengers. Gripping the dashboard for dear life, Seamus exclaimed, “You eejit! Are you tryin’ to kill us?”
“Oh, pipe down, Da,” Gabriel argued back. “I forgot, all right!”
Sean looked at his wife and shrugged one shoulder. “At least they’re talking,” he mouthed.
***
Walking alongside Sean to the hospital’s parking garage, Dr. Middleton said, “Amazing that an ear infection would make a child’s fever go so dang high. In my day, we’d get a dropper full of warm, sweet oil in the ear and voila — healed!”
Only absently listening to Dr. Middleton, Sean wondered whether Catie had gone to bed.
Once the doctor had informed them that Toby had only a severe ear infection, Sean had asked Gabriel to take Catie and their father home while he waited on Dr. Middleton to come and fill out the paperwork. Sean needed to be in Catie’s arms—so slender and feminine yet so strong and capable. That he needed comfort sounded sniveling and child-like, but he didn’t care. He was too tired and too weary to care. Try as he might, Sean couldn’t figure Toby Patterson out. Maybe he wasn’t meant to figure Toby Patterson out. “You can’t save them all,” one of his professors had told him during grad school—a threadbare statement but no less true. And Gabriel, a father? The realization was just sinking in. Until Sean went to university, he and Gabriel had shared a room, a life, every secret. Why hadn’t his brother told him? Sean looked down at his watch. No, surely she wasn’t asleep yet.
“Am I boring you?” Dr. Middleton asked.
His face reddening, Sean looked up. “No, sir. I-I was just wondering how long Toby might be in hospital.”
“A day at most. These things clear up quickly once you throw a good dose of antibiotics at them. Kids are more resilient than we give them credit for.”
Sean pictured Toby lying in the hospital bed, sleeping soundly from the sedative administered by the nurse to calm him. The little boy wore a baby blue hospital gown with smiling teddy bears holding on to colorful balloons. To Sean, the innocent motif seemed strangely out of place on a child who had witnessed such violence. Sean sighed. “It seems Toby’s been expected to be a bit more resilient than most.”
“Amen to that, Kelly. Amen to that.”
When they arrived, Sean noticed the street washers had been through recently, leaving behind a heavy mist that hung thick in the air. The blurriness felt like his insides. “Well, thanks for the lift, Dr. Middleton. Would you like to come up for coffee or tea?”
“No thanks. I best be gettin’ home to Prissy. She has trouble sleepin’ when I’m not there.”
Trying not to look grateful, Sean smiled. “I understand. Say…Dr. Middleton, did anything unusual happen during Toby’s visit with his granddad? I mean—anything that might make him runoff.”
“No.” Dr. Middleton shook his head. “The social worker said Toby sat there staring out the window like he usually does, never talked to her or the granddad. Must have been delirium; his fever was 105° when you brought him in.” Hugh Middleton chuckled. “I still can’t believe he thought your brother was the Archangel Gabriel. Damnedest thing, huh? If I’d known, I’d have impersonated the Messenger of God myself.”
“Yeah,” Sean laughingly agreed, “damnedest thing.”
“Sean.” Dr. Middleton suddenly became serious. “Why don�
�t you take Monday off? Your old man’s in town, and you’ve been burning the candle at both ends since you landed a few months back.”
“That’s kind of you, sir, but no thanks. Me dad’ll not stay long, and I’d like to see Toby on Monday.”
“All right.” Dr. Middleton gave Sean a defeated half-smile. “But I offered.”
“So you did.” Smiling back, Sean got out of the car. “Good night.”
“Night!” Dr. Middleton called back and drove off.
Standing on the street, Sean looked up at the house. Damn, the bedroom light is off!
Without bothering with pajama bottoms, Sean gently lifted the covers and slid into bed. He smoothed Catie’s strawberry blonde tresses, which were spread wildly about the pillow, down along her back then pulled her against his chest and nestled her warm, limp body under his chin. He kissed the top of her head and deeply inhaled her scent. The act stirred him but he wouldn’t wake her for his own pleasure. It had been a long night for them all.
She moved. It was a just a small shift of her foot, but he smiled, knowing she was awake. “You wee imp. You’re awake.” He ran his hand up her thigh and then down over her bottom, making his desire pound stronger. He slid down her knickers and whispered hoarsely against her neck, “Damn, darlin, you’ve the bonniest round arse.”
Without speaking, she scooted up and forward so he could make love to her, lifting her nightgown over her head as she did so. Greedily he sought her, awkwardly at first, but almost immediately, their bodies fell into a quick, even rhythm. His insistence intensified faster than he would have liked. Sean reached around and cupped her breasts, wishing he were on top of her so he could see them bounce. He moaned both with satisfaction and the unforgivable truth that she would be left wanting. That would not do.
“I’m sorry,” he panted, kissing her shoulder. “I was a bit quick off the mark, eh? Turn over.” Compliantly, Catie rolled onto her back, but he could tell by the rigidness in her movement there were other things on her mind. “What’s the matter?” he asked, his voice soft.
The Heart Does Whisper (Echoes of Pemberley Book 2) Page 19
