by Luanne Rice
“Bernie can’t admit certain things to herself,” John said.
“She’s extremely self-aware and totally honest,” Honor said, loyal to her best friend.
John shook his head, using his pencil to shade some areas on his sketch, frowning as he worked, as if he were thinking thoughts he didn’t want to say.
“What, John?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Try. I know she’s your sister, and you love her. But so do I…”
“I know,” he said. He looked over, met Honor’s eyes. She saw in his face the young man she had fallen in love with, right here at Star of the Sea. They were a couple, and so were Bernie and Tom. Honor had been touched that John and his older sister had been so close.
“She was just an ordinary girl,” he said. “I mean, to me, she made the sun rise. She was the greatest sister. But she seemed—I don’t know, just like everyone else. Normal, I guess. She prayed more than I did, went to mass more regularly. But art was my church, so it didn’t take much…”
Honor nodded. It was true that John met God through his work. Loving nature, being out in the wild, vulnerable to the elements, many miles from other human beings. In some ways, his spirituality had always seemed more extreme and austere than his sister the nun’s.
“We were just run-of-the-mill Catholics. Who doesn’t imagine becoming a nun or a priest? When we were little, we used to play at it.”
“Communion made from little circles of Wonder Bread,” Honor said, remembering how her friends had played, too.
John nodded. “Bernie would never play with us. She’d just shake her head, as if she didn’t want to take the sacraments lightly. And her eyes would get that glow….”
Honor knew what he was talking about. A clarity in her eyes, as if she was seeing so much more than the rest of them. Even during times of stress, like when John had gone to prison, she had exuded a sense of peace. Honor had spent a lot of time with Bernie during those years, because she’d made her feel everything would be all right.
“When she started going out with Tom,” John said, “I just thought that was it. They’d be together forever. I figured he’d be my brother-in-law.”
“I thought that, too,” Honor said. It was all so mysterious. For her, whose greatest dream had always been to marry John, raise their kids, be an artist, Bernie’s choice to join the convent had at first seemed shocking.
“That’s the part I’m not sure she’s ever really been honest about,” John said. “She joined the convent, but she never really let go of Tom. And he never really let go of her.”
“Well, he’s letting go of her now,” Honor said sadly, gazing toward the tall windows.
John reached for her now, pulled her to him. They kissed in the big dark studio, holding each other and feeling how close they’d come to losing each other. Love was so deep and powerful, a couple could think it would last forever. But life was a series of surprises, each one catching them off guard. It wasn’t so much what happened, but the way people reacted, that determined the future.
John turned off the light and came back to slip his arms around Honor again. His kiss was so hot, and the wind blowing against the north windows was so chilly. They held hands, walking each other through the dark of their studio, down the hall, and into their bedroom.
When they closed the door behind them, they were alone together. Honor knew that she had never wanted anyone, or anything, more than this. Her husband undressed her on the bed they had bought the year they got married. Her body arched with desire, his hand caressed her. She knew his touch by heart, yet it surprised her every time.
The fact that they had almost lost each other made every second more precious. She reminded herself of that every day. But right now, time blurred, and her thoughts drifted away. Making love, she and John were together forever. They always had been, and they always would be, and she knew it, because her skin was his and his skin was hers, and they melted together under the covers of their old bed.
Kathleen Murphy couldn’t sleep. The attic of Oakhurst had been so hot during the summer, but now autumn’s chill seeped through the uninsulated roof and walls, through windows badly in need of caulking. A stiff wind rattled the panes, making her jump, sit straight up in bed.
She was alone on the top floor. Except for Beth, her fellow help had all left Newport, and Beth lived “out,” with her boyfriend, in an apartment on Spring Street. Miss Langley had gone with Wendy and her family back to Manhattan, for the start of school. Samantha had returned with June and her children to Rhinebeck, where India was in her first month of kindergarten. And Bobby the chauffeur was now living in the carriage house—which suited Kathleen just fine, after that night last month when he’d stumbled upstairs so drunk he could barely walk, came into her room, and pretended he thought it was his own. She’d fought him off just fine—a lamp to the side of his lecherous head. Taught him a lesson…
Hearing the wind whistle under her door, she almost thought someone was calling her name. The sound came from behind the boarded-up door across the hall. Kathleen knew the family ghosts lived in there; she had haunted the place herself on one or two occasions. That’s how she’d learned the truth about Louise. Asking Pierce about her had gotten her a cold stare, and then he’d ignored her for three days. But Kathleen had found out herself, one afternoon off, when she’d pried off one of the boards, squeezed underneath, and let herself into the secret attic….
But the voice she heard tonight didn’t belong to Louise or anyone else from the Wells family. This was a ghost of Kathleen’s past. She heard the faintly whistling wind, coming through cracks in the wall, and could swear it was calling her name. Oh, she felt him coming for her—he’d never stopped needing her, any more than she had him. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end; but instead of pulling the covers more tightly around her, she jumped out of bed, flung open the door.
“James!” she whispered. Peering up and down the dark hall, she could swear she heard his voice.
But he wasn’t there. She stood still in her white nightgown, looking left and right. Her senses were finely tuned. They always had been, ever since St. Augustine’s. Sister Anastasia used to pick her up, rock her sometimes. She’d whisper in her ear, “Why are you still awake, little one? Who are you watching for?”
Sister Anastasia had said she was “vigilant.” Kathleen knew that was right. She was always on guard. Nothing got past her. If something happened, it was because she wanted it to.
Well, most things, anyway.
Standing in the drafty hall, she wondered whether Pierce would come up to see her tonight. The family was still in Newport, and would be for a few more days, before they went to Palm Beach for the winter. Trust funds were vile curses or wonderful things, depending on one’s perspective. They allowed grown men to stay boys forever. Shivering, Kathleen knew that it was warmer downstairs—every bedroom had a heating duct, and forced hot air made them warm and cozy.
Sometimes she wished Pierce would take her to his warm feather bed, let her stay with him there, in the toasty heat, instead of freezing up here. She could easily slip out before dawn, get back upstairs before his parents woke up. But except for that first time, they had never been together in his quarters. He liked to sneak up here when he felt like it—without any real rhyme or reason, or planning, or courting. He’d just come up in the dark, lie down on top of Kathleen, kiss her with his eyes closed, get busy with what he’d come for.
Standing in the darkened hall, Kathleen hated herself for harboring any romantic notions about such an obvious cad. As she’d once told Andrew, she used to believe in fairy tales. Not that the poor servant girl could make the prince fall in love with her if she was pretty, smart, and sexy enough; if she let him do anything he wanted, things his Social Register debutantes would never dream of. That was no fairy tale.
No, Kathleen’s fairy tale had always been about James; that he’d find her somehow. Never stop looking for her, no matter how long it took�
��Her spirit was stretched so thin, though. Her heart was turning to stone, a little bit at a time. These cold nights in the attic, wishing for Pierce’s loveless visits, were destroying her. She loathed herself for desiring—not him, but the feeling of his arms around her shoulders. So that even if James did find her, it might be too late.
Kathleen might already be lost….
Hearing voices downstairs now, she crept closer to the staircase to listen. It was dear Andy, saying good night to his mother.
“Darling, if only you wouldn’t drink quite so much,” Mrs. Wells said. “I’m not saying you should stop entirely, even though Dr. Malahyde seems to think it would be a good idea.”
“Mother, I’ll get a liver transplant.”
“That’s not funny, Andrew! Prevention, that’s what you should be thinking. You’ve seen your brother at parties, dear. The way he has one cocktail and makes it last. That’s what you should do.”
“He doesn’t care as much as I do,” Andrew said sadly.
“Care? What does caring have to do about anything?” his mother asked, as the impatience she’d been suppressing came pouring forth. “I don’t like oversensitivity, and you know it. Yes, the world is a cold, cruel place. But wallowing in it will just ruin you. Do you see me sniveling over your father’s situation? No.”
“Doesn’t it hurt you, that he goes to her every weekend?”
“I don’t even think about it, Andrew. And you shouldn’t either. It’s just what men do. You might feel better if you…”
“I’m not like that,” Andrew said. “And I wouldn’t want to be. The way Dad and Pierce are with women?”
“No. You just get drunk every night, watching reruns of Law & Order while life goes on without you. Other people your age are wearing gowns and tuxedos, having delightful times, while you lie on the sofa in sweatpants.”
Listening upstairs, Kathleen could practically see Mrs. Wells cringe as she said the words. Everything in the Wells world was supposed to be beautiful, elegant, without mess or fuss or rough edges. Women were to be wives, or hidden off to the side. Parties went on all night, on torchlit paths leading to white tents, or under crystal chandeliers in Belle Époque ballrooms, or on curved stone terraces overlooking the shining sea. People had titles—Princess this, Countess that.
And the help lived in the attic, without heat, waiting for their lovers to sneak up the back stairs, use them, and leave them alone again. Kathleen crouched down, gripping the banister, aching for a life she wasn’t sure existed.
“You have only yourself to blame,” Mrs. Wells said harshly to Andrew, her voice receding as she walked down the hall to her room. “You let Patricia get away. She was more than you could handle, and now she’s gone.”
“We never loved each other,” Andrew said, his voice wavering. “You knew that, Mother. You wanted me to marry her because it looked good in the society pages. You wanted me to make up for Louise.”
“That is a vile thing to say, Andrew,” Mrs. Wells gasped.
“Don’t you ever miss her, Mother?”
“How dare you ask me that? She’s dead to me—to all of us. Don’t ever let me hear you say her name again. You’re drunk, and you know I don’t like to talk to you when you’re drunk!” With that, Mrs. Wells walked into her bedroom and slammed the door.
Kathleen closed her eyes. She could feel Andy’s pain seeping upstairs, just like a cold draft. When she thought back to her childhood and the motherless girl she was, she remembered dreaming of having a mother love and nurture her. She had imagined someone brushing her hair, speaking softly to her about life and dreams, reading to her and tucking her in at night. Her own mother hadn’t, even after she’d reclaimed Kathleen.
Had Mrs. Wells ever done that for Louise? And if so, how could she have stopped loving her? Or was Kathleen’s vision of motherhood a complete fantasy? She had to know, and she had to know soon.
Andy sighed audibly, then headed down the back stairs to the kitchen. Even from up here, Kathleen could hear the bottles and ice clinking. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering on the top step. Closing her eyes, she sent good thoughts down to Andy, and hoped he could feel them.
That’s what she and James had done for each other. Not in their earliest years, when their cribs were right next to each other, and they could reach through the bars to touch hands. But later, when they were moved into the boys’ and girls’ wings. At first, the separation had been so terrible, Kathleen felt as if her arms had been cut off.
But over time, they’d learned how to deal with it. They’d stand in the windows of their respective wings, looking across the central courtyard, waving at each other. Kathleen would have stood there all night if Sister Anastasia hadn’t gently spun her around, walked her back to bed, tucked her in.
“I know you love James,” Sister had said, stroking her hair.
“I do,” Kathleen had said. “I miss him so much it hurts….”
“Oh, it doesn’t have to hurt,” Sister had said. “You have him with you always.”
“But he’s over there, and I’m over here!”
“Yes, but you’re together always, in a very special way.”
Kathleen had swallowed hard, wanting to believe that. Sister Anastasia would never lie to her. Peering up, she’d watched the nun for any sign she was telling Kathleen a story. But Sister had always had such light and goodness in her face, it was impossible to imagine anything but pure truth coming from her.
“How?” Kathleen had asked.
“Close your eyes,” Sister had said, “and think of him. Picture his eyes, his freckles, and that carrot top. Got it now?”
“Yes,” Kathleen had said, her eyes squeezed tight, an image of James so vivid, smiling, reaching for her, that she felt she could hold his hand right then.
“All right, then,” Sister had said. “When you fall asleep, take James with you into your dreams. Have wonderful adventures, Kathleen! Run on the beach, go swimming in the sea…climb Croagh Patrick!”
“We will,” Kathleen had promised. The year before, the St. Augustine’s patrons had treated the children to an excursion to Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s holy mountain. She knew just what it was like, rising into the clouds over Clew Bay, and she and James could climb it again tonight….
“Don’t let him go,” Sister had said, leaning over to kiss Kathleen’s forehead. “You just keep him with you…if you let go of his hand, close your eyes and think of him. You can always get him back.”
Sitting on the top step, eyes closed now, Kathleen wondered whether Sister had ever told James the same thing. Whether she had ever told him to hold tight to Kathleen, never let her go.
If only her parents hadn’t come for her that summer day, she thought now. If only she and James had stayed together…Everything would be different.
She was so distracted, she barely heard footsteps on the stairs. Pierce started up, his face in shadow. Kathleen’s heart beat faster; not from desire, though—from the opposite.
“Waiting for me?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous.
She didn’t even answer. There were no words. Shivering in the late September chill, she rose and preceded him to her room. She was so cold, and even more, so lonely. Her narrow bed creaked as they climbed in. His hands were soft, as if they’d never done a bit of work in his life, but they touched her so roughly, as if she were wooden, as if he had no idea that there were bones and muscles inside her smooth skin.
He grunted, kissing her, and he jammed himself inside her. She cried out a little; she wasn’t the least bit wet. That just made him push harder, more insistently. His legs felt hairy, like an animal’s, and they scraped her calves. Kathleen bit her lip, not caring if she drew blood. She squeezed her eyes as tight as she could.
There had been times in life when she’d called on James, from the depths of loneliness and despair, connecting with him wherever he was. At these times, she did the opposite. She blocked him out; shut the iron door of her mind on James, Sist
er Anastasia, all the angels and saints.
Kathleen somehow unlatched herself from the pain of Pierce’s rhythmic thrusting, the smell of his cologne, the click of his teeth against hers. She let herself feel the crush of human connection and the warmth of another body. She felt the wet explosion inside her, and wrapped her legs around his waist and cried.
He took it as pleasure, and that made him tender for a moment: he hugged and kissed her, smoothed her hair back from her forehead, whispered that she was great. Then he kissed the tip of her nose and pulled his pants on. They weren’t sweatpants, but Armani. Kathleen would be hanging them up in his closet after she made his bed tomorrow morning.
“Night, baby,” he said then, closing her door behind him, sneaking down the hall so his mother wouldn’t hear him, going somewhere warmer: his own room.
He didn’t notice that Kathleen’s little cry had kept going, gaining velocity, that she was silently sobbing now, holding her pillow, thinking crazy thoughts about a baby doll she had once had, a doll with red hair that her foster parents had thrown into the trash.
She hung onto her pillow, thinking of that doll instead of James, because although they both had red hair, only the doll wouldn’t see Kathleen’s life as something she probably should have left in the garbage.
Twenty
The law firm of Kelly, Walsh, and Fitzpatrick was instrumental in the regeneration of Dublin’s Docklands, and therefore had one of the finest offices in the brand-new Global Financial Center. Given the choice of locating the firm here or in the equally desirable nineteenth-century Custom House Quay, Sixtus Kelly had really thought there was no contest—for a Kelly.
For as charming and historical as the old brick buildings were, Sixtus enjoyed having an office on the top floor of this glass structure. There was a time no self-respecting person would come down to the Docklands. The port had fallen into decline, and it was an area of crime and skulduggery. There had been shipbuilding at Ringsend, a glassworks making bottles for Guinness stout, and flour mills opened after the Famine for non-Irish-grown wheat.
