Saint and Scholar

by Holley Trent

  “No, love, I’m not asking you to honor and obey. I’m saying you should get over yourself.”

  She stood there for a moment, staring at the naked Adonis agape and agog, then found her wits. “Get over myself, huh?” She grabbed her backpack, picked up the other room key, and stormed down the hall. Maybe little Meg was right about the professor.

  Chapter 13

  “Well, that went better than I thought,” Grant mumbled to the bathroom mirror. Without a shadow of a doubt, he knew Carla wasn’t one of those women who’d gone to college for the sole purpose of finding a mate. She’d been raised to be independent. She didn’t need anyone to take care of her. Those reasons were exactly why he wanted her as the mother of his children. He’d decided rather spur-of-the moment to be blunt about his intentions. Being sweet about it or waiting until she’d finally agreed to move over to tell her wouldn’t be any more convincing. Really, he just hoped she’d stew for a while and accept it. All those years he’d waited for her had given him a lot of time to think. He wasn’t going to change his mind.

  He’d been waiting in the rental car for about half an hour when she finally exited the inn with her backpack. She was wearing a decent shirt, for once, along with jeans, and had his jacket draped over her arm. She spotted the car, rolled her eyes and walked over sulking.

  “I can do this on my own,” she said, dropping into the passenger seat.

  “Really, love? You going to read a map and drive in a strange country at the same time?”

  “I’ll pull over.”

  “Bullshit. I’ve seen your driving. You’re a menace to the roadways. Pull your seatbelt on, will you? I told you before we left the States–no matter what happened, I’d help you. I don’t even know what’s happening right now. All the same, I’ll honor my commitment.”

  “So noble.”

  “I try to be as much as I can, love.” He steered the car north toward County Cavan, and she rode without a word. If she wanted to play the silent-treatment game, he’d let her.

  At the Catholic church Grant had arranged to visit, the secretary was kind enough to allow Grant to raid the archives at their leisure, since she didn’t have time to pull the relevant documents herself. It would have been Phillip’s church, had he lived in the area. Phillip’s residency was precisely what Grant was still trying to ascertain. The Callaghans listed in the church’s old records were of no relation to Phillip, at least not closely. They may have been cousins, but that didn’t help Carla’s research. Perhaps someday it would aid in the creation of a more comprehensive family tree. However, for pedigree purposes it was as good as a dead end.

  While in the area, Grant made inquiries at the historical society about old land, tax and census records only to find nothing noteworthy for the dates in question.

  Grant decided they should break for lunch. He wanted to treat Carla to an excellent local meal representative of what her ancestor might have eaten. It might have been a pleasurable meal if not for the daggers she shot at him from those blue eyes. She alternated between ignoring his questions and answering them with glowers. He didn’t care if she was angry–not really. Not yet. He would keep on behaving as if nothing was amiss, hoping she’d eventually come around. It was his choice to play with fire.

  They got lucky in County Monaghan, and found a bit of information at a church near Carrickmacross. An old deacon opened up the vault and found the baptism record for Phillip Callaghan and his twin brother Patrick. In the entries days before was a record of the funeral of their mother Annette, and her burial nearby.

  “I think you’ll find this bit interesting,” the deacon said. He placed a second smaller book on top of the open register. He removed his paper marker and indicated the line of importance.

  She squinted at the archaic scrawl. “I don’t understand the language. Or languages, rather.”

  “Latin and Irish, love. That’s unusual, the mix. Whoever recorded it probably didn’t have a good enough grasp of Latin to use it exclusively and cheated, knowing most folks couldn’t read anyway.”

  “That’s right!” the deacon said, patting Grant on the back. “How many languages can you read, boy? Can you tell what it says?”

  “Just four. Helped with my studies. Yes, I can read it.” He pulled on a white cotton glove and pointed to a section on the delicate page. “You see this, Carla?” He put his free arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to the bookstand. “Their father was a monk.”

  “That’s right, he was,” the deacon interjected. “At least for a bit. Just so you know, the marriage came first and conception after.”

  She freed herself of his embrace and stepped away. “So, he was penniless, is what you’re saying?”

  “That’s right! Are you both historians?” The deacon mussed her hair like she was a kid and she made a face at his back when he turned. “It would have been a hardscrabble existence for sure, having no land to farm and no wife to raise the children. He probably went into the monastery poor, so he certainly came out of it that way. That’s all we have on his origins, other than the names of his parents written on the marriage record. He likely came from one of the more distant villages, so I can’t tell you much else.”

  She nodded.

  “Do you know what might have happened to James after the boys were baptized?” Grant asked.

  “That, I can tell you.” The deacon whisked the smaller book away, closed the larger one under it, and opened a third he had waiting nearby. He opened it to the marker and pointed to a line item for James Callaghan while adjusting his reading glasses with his other hand. “He died in 1769.”

  Grant tapped her on her shoulder to get her attention. “That’s a year before Patrick and Phillip sailed.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Mm hmm. They would have been what, fifteen?”

  “Sounds right.”

  “Must have been miserable for them,” she said. Her voice was utterly flat. “To be so young and to consign themselves to a stranger for passage to some wild place that would break them, for all they knew.”

  The old man squeezed her shoulder consolingly. “We Ulster sorts are a hearty lot for the most part. They obviously survived, yeah?”

  She smiled when the genial deacon bumped her shoulder with his own. Indeed they had. She was the proof.

  Once outside with a stack of photocopied records to examine for further clues later, Grant guided a still-sulking Carla to the car. He draped his arms over her shoulders and pulled her close.

  She let him, but the tension in her body told him she wasn’t necessarily happy to be there.

  He ignored it. “You want some dinner?”

  She averted her gaze and looked down at her shoes. “No, um. Actually, I’d like some time alone. You can head back to Meath and I’ll make my way down to Dublin on Thursday to meet my brother. I want to stay here.”

  He tipped her chin up to force her to make eye contact with him, but found her gaze told him absolutely nothing. She was cold, very unlike his Carla. She must be in a real state. Still, what else could he have done? Given up the entirety of his dream just because she wouldn’t come around on one part? The situation was requiring more patience than he expected, but he’d soldier on a bit longer. “Shut up and wait,” Dad had said. Well, it felt like shit and he was starting to wonder if maybe his father was an idiot. “Are you sure? I don’t like the idea of you being up here alone.”

  “I see your lips moving, Grant, but it’s Tony’s voice I hear.”

  He sighed and rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Alright. I have some names of people who know a lot about the local history, if you want to try to meet up with them tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Give them to me, but I’ll probably just walk around and try to absorb the culture. Maybe do some meditation in an old church.” She turned her head in the direction of the one they’d just exited and stared at it wistfully.

  He understood. She wanted to exorcise her demons. She was a grown woman, and she�
�d asked for some space. He was man enough to give it to her, but still boyish enough to fear she’d take it and run.

  * * * *

  Carla spent much of the next thirty-six hours crying. At first she didn’t even know what she was crying about. She thought it was about Grant, because she really did care for him, but deep down she knew that wasn’t it. She cried on buses, oblivious to the gawks of her fellow passengers. She cried while watching the Carrickmacross nuns make lace, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do so. She openly wept in the pews of dim churches and was mostly ignored, because if a person couldn’t cry there, where else could she?

  It took her a while to understand it, but eventually she realized it was guilt. She’d lied. Oh, she did guilt better than anyone and it hit her like a sack of bricks. She felt awful that she could do what her dad couldn’t. Her father never had a chance to see the place his ancestors had to leave. He’d never known that like his father and grandfather, Phillip was a soldier. He never knew Phillip’s father loved his mother so much he abandoned his service to the church.

  Her father would have wanted to know those things. He would have been proud to know them, because even though many generations removed from Phillip’s arrival in Philadelphia, Daddy had considered himself thoroughly Irish. So had his father. As had his grandfather. They never got to go home. And there she was, sitting in a church where her ancestor had once worshipped, feeling like a shitty daughter because she’d never been interested in anything but herself when her father was alive.

  Thursday around noon, she checked out of her inn in Carrickmacross and navigated the private bus system down to Dublin, where she waited at the airport until Ashley and Sharon arrived. She’d been sitting with her luggage, waiting for some sign of them when she suddenly had the bright idea to check her messages. She hadn’t turned her phone on since Monday.

  There were several, most of which she deleted without listening to in full, to spare herself roaming charges. The second-to-last one was from Ashley telling her he’d gotten the flight times screwed up due to crossing time zones and asking if she was around. He’d left it five hours before. The last message was from Grant informing her that he’d picked Ashley and Sharon up and took them with him to his father’s. “Where are you, love?” he’d asked.

  “Going home,” she mumbled to herself before telescoping the handle of her suitcase up and toting everything to the ticket counter.

  * * * *

  “I’m sorry, Ashley, I really don’t know where she is,” Grant said. When Carla’s phone clicked to voicemail yet again, he ended the call and shoved his phone into his shirt pocket. “She said she would make her way down to Dublin to meet you today. I don’t know anything else. She’s obviously not answering my calls, and the folks at the inn said she checked out after lunch.

  “It’s alright, son,” Dad said as he walked by the garden bench with his pruners in tow. He gave Grant a consoling pat on the shoulder. “Your old lady will show up.” He walked off toward the golf course to see to some hedges.

  “I knew this was a bad idea,” Ashley said. He pounded his fist against the birdhouse pole and sent a startled finch skyward. “I should have stopped her from boarding the plane at RDU. Why did she feel like she had to do this?”

  Sharon walked over to him and rubbed the small of his back. “Ashley, she’s a big girl, just like me. She’ll check in eventually if she wants to.” She walked over to the bench and sat next to Grant with her knees turned toward him. He noticed how well put together she was with all her layers. Carla hadn’t quite been able to master that. But, goddamn, what was up with her perfume? He felt his throat shutting down from being in the arena of the heavy floral scent. “Tell me exactly what happened? How you got separated.”

  He blew out a long exhale and raked his hand through his newly shorn locks. The gesture didn’t feel quite as satisfying without all the curls. “Well, it’s somewhat personal.”

  “My fist in your face is going to be personal in a minute, guy,” Ashley said.

  Sharon rolled her eyes and twirled her diamond ring around her finger idly. “Go on, Grant.”

  “Like I said. We had a disagreement about the trajectory of our relationship, and I wasn’t willing to make concessions.”

  “How so?” Ashley asked. He walked over and stood in front of Grant, giving a good stare-down.

  Grant was in his usual casual gear and was pretty sure what was left of his hair looked mashed in the back from sitting upright on the sofa all night. The heaviness under his eyes hinted that he probably had bags there, but he hadn’t been spending much time in front of a mirror to verify such. Sharon and Ashley probably thought he was a slob in addition to a cad. No sooner had Grant arrived at the rental car agency did Ashley fly off his rocker about his sister’s absence. He still hadn’t come down from his tantrum. His histrionics put Carla’s to shame.

  Grant wasn’t intimidated by Ashley’s assessment. He looked at the young doctor from his perfectly combed blond head down to his expensive loafers and back up to his gray eyes. “It’s really none of your business. If she wants to tell you when she shows up, it’s up to her. I left the ball in her court.”

  Ashley lurched forward, but Sharon held her hand palm-out to halt him. “Ashley, you’re not helping. I know more about this part of Carla’s life than you. I think she’s gotten a lot of bad advice from all of us in the past few years, so we need to be mindful of that. I bet she doesn’t even know what she wants.” She turned back to face Grant again. “Since we’re here, will you show us what she came here to see? Maybe by the time we’re done, she’ll check in.”

  He looked at Ashley, who shrugged. Sharon fiddled with her diamond again. It must have been new, or else she wouldn’t be so mindful of it. “Okay. We can take my car. I’m trying to break it in.”

  “Slick ride for a professor,” Ashley mumbled as they walked toward the shiny new crossover.

  “I thought Carla would like it,” Grant said with a shrug. “I’ll probably bike to work if I can find a house close enough.”

  * * * *

  “Why are you making that face, Sharon?” Carla asked before staring again into her orange juice. She didn’t really want it. She didn’t want anything. It had been a few weeks since she’d run home from Ireland and Sharon was still on her case about how she’d left Grant dangling.

  “You know, Ashley has been talking to Grant a lot lately and he says you’re still not taking his calls. Why?”

  “Why should she?” Meg asked. She’d returned from the dance club’s bar with yet another giant soda. She was wearing a button-up shirt that didn’t quite meet at the midsection as it was supposed to, but if she didn’t want to address the elephant in the room, neither would Carla. “He did exactly what I said he would, am I right?”

  “Oh, come the hell off it,” Sharon said, rolling her big brown eyes. “He ruined your major GPA. You can’t assess his character based on the fact that he graded you fairly for your shitty work.”

  Meg gaped. “What’s this crap? Since when are you and Ashley in the Dr. Brogue Fan Club? Ashley went from hating his guts to being his BFF overnight. Why? Maybe you guys are deluded, too. I don’t see the allure.”

  “No,” Sharon said. “I believe in love, and I believe that man loves Carla. That’s all it is. I want my friend to be happy, as should you, Meg.”

  “Of course I want Carla to be happy! She’s been sweeping up my metaphorical messes for nearly eight years. She’s like the sister I don’t have.”

  “Thanks, Meg,” Carla murmured into her glass.

  “So why are you so averse to her finding her Prince Charming, huh?”

  “God, Sharon, you’ve turned into such a sap since you came out of the closet about Ashley.”

  Sharon shrugged. “Yeah, might as well be. My family kind of wants to disown me over it, so I’m looking on the bright side. Daddy’s already cut me off. I was supposed to marry a good Jewish boy, you know? Here I am engaged to this c
ranky Irish-Italian-American guy. He’s a doctor, so at least my mother is grasping at that. Being your sister better be worth it,” she said to Carla with a nudge.

  “I can’t promise that.”

  Glad she stopped wearing that perfume. What the hell was Ashley thinking? He couldn’t ask someone younger for a suggestion?

  “Oh, honey, it’ll be fine. Hey, do you want to dance? Music’s getting better. They finally turned that techno dreck off.”

  Carla shook her head. “No, I’m sorry to abandon home base tonight, but I think I’m going to head to my apartment. I’ve been up since six and did three sketches today. Witnesses were all over the place. My head hurts.”

  Meg shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll probably bounce soon, too. My back is killing me for some reason.”

  “It’s because you’re pregnant, Meg,” Carla said with a sigh as she pushed back from the table and stood. She didn’t turn around when Meg started stuttering like a motorboat.

  The last thing she heard before she got too deep into the crowd was Sharon saying, “Well, if you feel the need to hide it, maybe you should examine your own relationship, because baby, that ain’t right.”

  Carla went home to find yet another email from Grant she wouldn’t respond to. He’d made a daily habit of writing to her. The messages had been very much like journal entries detailing his day at work and chronicling what, if anything, he’d found out about her pedigree. He had taken his promise to heart and was still searching out information about Phillip’s deep ancestry. He’d even started researching some of Adam’s maternal lineage. They’d been in America for far less time than the other branch, only since the potato blight. She settled onto her bed with her computer on her lap and opened the message

  Hey, love.

  How are you? Ashley says you’re fine. I hope he’s being honest.

  Dad’s still in his holding pattern. He swore all last week we could start picking through some of the mess at the house over the weekend, but after waking up and getting dressed he had his usual change of heart. Fortunately, I won’t be living here in the towers of trash much longer. I may have found a place near the university. It’s old and needs a lot upgrading I’m not keen on, but the location is perfect and the rooms aren’t so cramped.