Casting Off

by Nicole R Dickson

  “The thunder boomed and he jumped up here. Can he stay? I think he’s scared.”

  “I suppose,” Rebecca said, as she slipped off her clothes and put on her nightshirt. Turning off the light, she climbed into bed, easing her body around Rowan and Trace. The dog crawled between Rebecca and Rowan, his smelly jaw nuzzled beneath their pillows.

  “I guess Mr. O’Flaherty never taught Trace to sing when he’s scared of a storm.” Rowan giggled.

  “I suppose not,” Rebecca said. She rolled away from Rowan and the dog, listening to the storm, the mistle thrush beyond the window, and Dennis yelling in her head.

  CHAPTER 15

  Honeycomb

  Honeycomb. 1. This stitch appears exactly as it is named. The cells of the comb can be larger or smaller, depending on the number of stitches used. 2. Traditionally represents hard work and its rewards. An entire jumper made in the honeycomb stitch is saying something worth thinking about.

  —R. Dirane, A Binding Love

  Rebecca had a rough night with very little sleep, and that, coupled with the fact that Rowan wasn’t feeling well the next day, made her decide they would stay home. She called Maggie to tell her so, but she would have none of it. Within the hour Maggie, Annie, and Siobhan showed up at Rebecca’s door with game boards, cards, and fresh bread from Rose’s oven in hand. Their idea was to keep Rowan company at home so that Rebecca could go meet Mairead Fitzgibbon.

  “I don’t know, Annie. What if she’s contagious?” Rebecca needed an excuse not to leave her daughter. She didn’t want to be stupid again.

  “Then Siobhan’ll get it and Maggie’s wee ones’ll get it. They’ll all get it. That’s what it is to be on an island.”

  “Come on, Becks.” Maggie pressed her to go. “It’s a treat for me. Annie said she’d stay with the girls, so this is my day without work or the wee ones. I don’t get out that often.”

  “You go with Maggie. We’ll all be fine here,” Annie said, pushing Rebecca out the door. “Besides, Mairead is very excited about meeting you. She doesn’t get many visitors.”

  Frowning, Rebecca threw her backpack, which held her cameras, over her shoulders, placed the tripod in one of the side baskets, straddled her bike, and pedaled down the gravel lane behind Maggie, who was on her own bike. She glanced back as she bumped onto the asphalt. Her bright blue door was shut.

  “It’ll be all right,” she whispered. “They’ll stay home.”

  On the road there was not a breeze or any other sign of the storm from the night before. The only hint of rain was the little puddles that glistened in the sunlight as they sat undisturbed next to the stone walls. Pedaling through the town, Maggie and Rebecca waved to John Hernon and Father Michael, and then with a great burst of speed they raced past Maggie’s house and the pub, lest someone spot them. Maggie was a woman with a mission—a day off.

  Having successfully cleared the town, the two women rode directly into the back of a group of fifteen tourists who were heading to the large Stone Age fort that sat on the southernmost point of the island. As Maggie and Rebecca slowed down, becoming the back of the group, the puddles tapped Rebecca’s memory with their dappling light.

  She remembered Sharon telling her about sneaking out at night with John and Fionn to go to the fort. There they would sit and smoke and watch the Milky Way float across the midnight sky. Rebecca smiled. She loved that story, having a natural affinity for old places, and wondered if there ever was a time when the fort was without tourists. Was it possible to take Rowan at night—to sleep in a place where ancient people had slept in ages past?

  “That’s Sean’s house,” Maggie said, pointing to a white cottage that sat solitary near the sand to the west. “See. He has a beach. That’s helpful if you fish with curraghs.”

  “No beach near my house,” Rebecca replied.

  “There’s a stone walkway northwest of your house that leads down to a very small rocky cove. It’s got a bit of sand. Fionn’s grandfathers launched their curraghs from there. You should take Rowan.”

  Rebecca nodded. A mile or so later, Rebecca and Maggie veered east, leaving the tourists on their own. Up a slight slope and over a hill, they came to an old two-story house. Two golden-haired little girls watched with wide eyes as Rebecca and Maggie came to a stop.

  “Good day to you, Ciara,” Maggie said. “Meara. Where’s your mum?”

  “In the house with Tadhg.”

  “And your dad?”

  “With the bees.”

  “Always,” Maggie said, winking at Becky.

  Resting their bikes against the stone wall near the house, Maggie and Rebecca watched the two little girls run inside.

  “Twins,” Maggie said. “First time havin’ ’em and she pops out twins.”

  “What’s ‘tige’?”

  “Who’s Tadhg, actually. He’s the little one. A year and a half if I remember right.” As they reached the house, Maggie called in the door, “Mairead?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  Rebecca walked into a small living room strewn with toys and papers and crayons and puzzles. The floor was also littered with three boys and a girl of various ages, staring once at Rebecca, then back to the television. Bowls of cereal sat drying up on the coffee table while on the staircase clothes were tossed haphazardly over the banister. The lampshades were tilted in such a way as to make the whole room look askew.

  Stepping through a doorway, Rebecca found Mairead, her belly bloated with pregnancy and her eyes rimmed with dark circles. She sat in front of a high chair with a spoon in her hand.

  “Mairead, Becky. Becky, Mairead.”

  “I’d go get the jumper, but if I don’t stay with Tadhg here, he’ll scream like a banshee,” Mairead said. “The only gansey I could find is at the top of the staircase.”

  Maggie moved past Rebecca to fetch it. As she did so, the little boy glanced away from his tray, his eyes holding Rebecca in what seemed to her to be a look of disdain. He shoved a fistful of green beans into his mouth.

  “How far along are you?” Rebecca inquired.

  “Seven months. Twins again. Can you believe it?”

  Rebecca smiled compassionately. One was hard enough, but nine? All she could think to say was, “Must be hard. I only have one.”

  “Not hard. Just a lot of work with no sleep. Can’t sleep with a belly this big.”

  “Your husband must not be sleeping well now, too.”

  “Ah, he sleeps fine and then he goes to work.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “Organic farming. Well, I farm with the kids. He raises the bees.”

  “You farm?”

  “Aye. Walking through the fields is getting rough—especially with Tadhg here. Thank the Lord for the girls.” Mairead smiled at her daughters.

  “They help in the fields?”

  “Well, they watch Tadhg in the fields with the boys.”

  “And your husband raises bees.”

  “Aye.”

  “Here, Becky.”

  Turning around, Rebecca found Maggie holding a gansey. It was oatmeal in color and had only one pattern top to bottom—honeycomb. Rebecca glanced over at Mairead, who chuckled.

  “If all I get out of him is honey, then all he gets out of me is that stitch.”

  Maggie burst out laughing.

  “The bees bother you?” Rebecca asked.

  “Look around. What do you think?”

  “I think you need a break,” Rebecca said.

  “Aye!”

  “Becky needs to know your stitches, Mairead, and in order for that to happen, I think you need time to yourself. Perhaps Becky should talk to your husband. He’s one of her kind anyway.”

  Rebecca looked at Maggie quizzically.

  “He’s around back. Ciara, take Becky out to talk to your dad.”

  Skipping over, Ciara grabbed Rebecca’s index finger and led her back through the living room.

  “I’ll make some tea,” Maggie called after them.

&nbs
p; Rebecca followed Ciara around the corner of the house to the back, and there, in a small field some twenty yards away, were two sheds. Or rather, there was one shed and next to it a disheveled lean-to, listing precariously to the north. Ciara stopped abruptly at the stone wall that separated the field from the house.

  “Dad,” Ciara called. “We have a visitor.”

  A very thin man who stood over six feet tall poked his head out the shed door. “Hello,” he called, his accent clearly American. “You must be Sharon’s friend.”

  “Yes,” Rebecca said, letting go Ciara’s hand. “You American?”

  “No, Irish. Well, Irish now. Was from California.”

  “That’s where I’m from.”

  “Really?” he said, smiling. “Where?”

  “I was raised in Redding.”

  “I was born in Westminster,” he said, walking over. “I’m Jim—Jim Fitzgibbon.”

  “Rebecca Moray.”

  “You moving here, too?”

  “Nah, just staying for the summer.”

  “Ah, that’s right. You’re writing a book.”

  “How’d you end up here?”

  “My grandmother was from here. A Dirane she was. When she passed on, my cousin told me he was going to sell the place. My grandmother was the last of her siblings to go, and my cousin didn’t see any purpose hanging on to the farm, he being the only Dirane left on the island and his wife’s family being from Doolin, on the mainland. Couldn’t really blame him for wanting to leave. So I finished my degree at Davis, packed it up, and bought the place from him. Been here ever since. Farming the land of my fathers.”

  “And beekeeping.”

  “Yes! You want some honey?”

  “Sure.”

  “Come on, then.”

  Jim turned around and began walking to the shed without looking back. Searching around the wall, Rebecca found no gate, so she hurriedly climbed over the stones and trotted after him.

  “You sure you have extra?” she panted.

  “Oh, yeah. We’re going to sell it, but Mairead hasn’t made the labels yet.”

  “What labels?”

  “The labels for the jars. There’s money to be made in honey, you know.”

  “Mairead needs to make labels . . .” Rebecca repeated. “Doesn’t she seem a bit—busy—already?”

  “Aye. But she’s the artist. She’s very creative.”

  “Yeah. I saw your jumper.”

  “Great, huh?” Jim said, looking back at her with a broad smile as he opened the shed. “She knows I love the bees.”

  Rebecca nodded with a shrug. Peering into the shed, she caught her breath. Neatly stacked in crates rising to the ceiling were hundreds of jars of honey.

  “That’s a lot of labels,” Rebecca murmured.

  “Busy bees,” Jim said. “These are not your typical honeybees. They’re the brown bees of these islands. Suited for the weather and flora. You’ll not taste honey like this anywhere else.”

  Rebecca nodded again with a small smile as Jim handed her a jar. “So, your kids help you out here?” she asked.

  “Oh, no. Too dangerous for them. Maybe when they’re older.”

  “Must take a lot of time. Bees, I mean.”

  “Keeping living things requires time and attention.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  Jim’s eyes were filled with the reflection of the golden honey sparkling in the noonday sun. Rebecca squinted, trying to recall where she had seen that look before. Suddenly it came to her. It was the same vacant stare in the dusty pictures hanging on the walls of the Sutter’s Mill museum. Men, struck by gold fever in the late 1840s, gazed out at the world with that same hollow look, frozen in sepia photos for all time. Jim was a man with the fever—a solitary forty-niner panning for little nuggets of riches while his life went by. At least Jim’s nuggets were edible.

  “Well, thanks for the honey,” Rebecca muttered, stepping out of the shed.

  “It’s really good with Rose’s bread.”

  “Ah! I got a loaf of that this morning.”

  “Best breakfast in the world.”

  Rebecca made her way back to the stone wall. Holding the jar of honey near her chest, she climbed out of the field and headed back to the house. She rounded the corner and found Maggie leaning against the front door, sipping tea.

  “Sad, isn’t it?” she said.

  “What?”

  “Jim.”

  “Sadder for Mairead and the kids, don’t you think?”

  “That’s what we all say. We’ve tried to talk to him. Even Father Michael. Jim just doesn’t hear.”

  “No, he really doesn’t, does he? He actually likes Mairead’s jumper.”

  “I know!” Maggie laughed.

  Rebecca shook her head.

  “It’s a Dam Mad Situation, Becky.”

  “As opposed to a damn mad situation?” Rebecca asked.

  “Aye.”

  Rebecca watched a sly smile grow on Maggie’s face. “What are you up to, Mags?”

  “Ah, we love that story of yours. Something has to be done, Becks.”

  “It’s just a family story, Mags.”

  “We’ve all tried to help Jim. He needs a good American shake-up.”

  “You people aren’t very good at confrontation, are you?”

  “You people are.”

  “But he says he’s Irish—not my people.”

  “Maybe his heart and soul are,” Maggie replied with a snicker. “But his body and mind are still one of you.”

  Rebecca squinted into Maggie’s eyes. “I reckon this’ll take some planning.”

  “I reckon, Beckon. Want some tea?”

  “Only if it’s in a clean cup.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Celtic Knots

  Celtic Knot. 1. These vary in size and intricacies, but all are created with cross stitches and twisted stitches. Celtic knots are very complicated patterns and are best learned from more advanced knitters. 2. Music.

  —R. Dirane, A Binding Love

  Thesun poured brightly through his sons’ window, touching the yellow swatch Sean held in his hand. It had taken him six days to get the color correct, each swatch becoming cooler and cooler as he sprinkled tiny granules of blue dye into the yellow liquid. The twenty-two discarded scraps of cloth were scattered about the floor like so many dandelion flowers plucked by Sean’s little boys on a spring morning some sixty years before, a few falling between small fingers as his sons handed them to their mother.

  “Not that memory.” Sean smiled. “Halos and the feet of a tiny man.”

  A shadow passed across his window, and following it, Sean found a mistle thrush flittering by his house, coming in from the sea. The bird tumbled in the periwinkle blue sky that was as clear as the sound of Joe’s pipe. As that thought flicked across Sean’s mind, the old man jumped up from his seat, staring at the periwinkle heaven. He had not seen a purplish blue sky since Matthew’s fifteenth birthday.

  I’m afraid, Da.

  Sean grabbed the sides of his head, willing his brain to think of Brendan and halos.

  “No!” he yelled to the floor. “Not that memory.”

  But the periwinkle sky didn’t listen. It glared down on Sean, shoving its way into his darkened house and heart without a drop of mercy.

  “I’m afraid, Da,” Matthew said softly, gazing up into his father’s face with pleading eyes.

  “You asked for the bicycle.”

  “Sean, give the boy time,” Claire said, holding two-year-old Brendan on her hip.

  “The sky’ll not be any clearer than that,” Sean replied, pointing up into the periwinkle morning. “’Tis a dry day. The rest of your brothers gave up a lot so we could buy this bike for you. Now you’ll be needing to get on it.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Get on the bike and I’ll give you a push.”

  His eldest boy’s shaking hands grasped the handlebars while he lifted his feet to the pedals.

  “Wa
it, Da!” Matthew yelled as Sean gave his son a great push down the slope.

  Claire gasped.

  “Shut up,” Sean said without looking at her.

  Matthew raced down the hill, bumping over a rut in the dirt road where the bike skidded out from beneath him. The boy was airborne, flying into a ditch beside the road, headfirst.

  “Matthew!” Liam screamed as he ran past his mother toward the ditch where his brother lay motionless.

  Sean cuffed his four-year-old son on the chin, sending Liam stumbling back toward Joe.

  “He’s just a wee one, Da!” Joe yelled at his father, catching Liam before the little boy hit the ground. Joe was thirteen and as tall as Matthew. Sean spun around to face Joe, who, upon meeting his father’s eye, set his jaw as he pushed his chest out. Sean stepped toward him.

  “Sean!” Claire said, grabbing her thirteen-year-old boy by the shoulder of his gansey and pulling him back.

  “I said shut up, Claire!”

  “Matthew’s hurt,” Liam whispered.

  “He’s not moving, Sean,” Claire choked.

  “Matthew!” Sean yelled angrily, baring his teeth at Joe as he turned back toward the ditch. He stormed down the sloping dirt road. “Matthew, get up from there!”

  Sean stood over his son, whose limp body lay still. Climbing into the ditch next to Matthew, Sean shook him.

  “Matthew!”

  Matthew did not respond.

  Sean slapped his son’s face.

  “Sean!” Claire yelled.

  “Shut up! Matthew!”

  Matthew’s eyes fluttered open. “Da?”

  “Get up!”

  Slowly Matthew rolled over, but his right arm crumpled when he tried to support his weight with it.

  “My arm.”

  “Get up and get on that bike.” Sean reached down and grabbed Matthew by the collar of his blue gansey, which pulled the sleeve against the injured arm.

  “My arm!”

  “It’s not that bad,” Sean seethed into Matthew’s ear in a menacing whisper. “You’re worrying your mother something terrible. Now get on the bike and show her you’re fine.”

  Matthew glanced back at his mother, leaving his right arm to hang limply at his side. He waved a little with his uninjured left hand.