Casting Off

by Nicole R Dickson

  A south wind stole Sean’s sons away from him. “Then the south wind is fickle.”

  “What’s ‘fickle’?”

  “Sometimes your friend and sometimes not. I’m thirsty. You think Siobhan is ready to wake up? I think it’s time to go.”

  Rowan crawled down from his lap. “Wake up, Siobhan,” she whispered in her friend’s ear.

  The little girl yawned, sitting up and blinking in the early-afternoon sun. “I’m hungry,” she announced.

  “Come on, then.”

  Together Sean and the girls climbed out of the tattered old boat and headed into town. He wasn’t sure where he should go, as the women were all at the Fitzgibbons’ and Tom would have quite a menagerie in the back of his pub if Anne Hernon had returned to town with the seven Fitzgibbon children.

  Bicycles whizzed down the street as Sean turned the corner. He grabbed Rowan and Siobhan’s hands and led them to Father Michael’s house. When they stepped through the priest’s gate, the father was bent over his raspberry-colored rose.

  “You found them,” he noted as he stood up.

  “Aye,” Sean said. “We were wondering if you had something to drink and eat.”

  “Of course,” Father Michael said, setting his pruning shears down in the dirt.

  “Sit,” Sean said to the girls, motioning to the small wrought-iron table.

  The priest climbed his kitchen stairs.

  “What are we doing here, Mr. Morahan?” Siobhan asked.

  “Resting. Mairead’s having her babies.”

  “Can I hold the baby?” Rowan asked, slumping into the chair opposite him. Her cheeks were pink from the sun.

  Sean smiled, glancing around the debris in the garden. “I’m sure Mairead would appreciate any help,” he said. “That’s how it is on the island—everyone helping everyone else.”

  He stopped, listening to the words he had just spoken. That was what Claire had always told her boys. It was how she was raised. Sean’s father, on the other hand, took care only of his own. Did he ever tell his sons such? He couldn’t remember.

  “Well, since the father is kind enough to feed us, we should help him clean up his garden,” Sean said.

  Father Michael returned with a tray of lemonade and sandwiches.

  “I only had cheese for sandwiches.”

  “That’ll be fine. The girls and I have decided to help you with your garden. After we eat, we’ll clean and you can think about your pots.”

  “That would be brilliant,” the priest said quietly, lifting a glass of lemonade. He held his glass to his open mouth, gaping at Sean.

  “Anything wrong there, Father?” Sean asked, picking up his own glass. The lemonade went down his throat.

  “No—no, not at all,” Father Michael replied.

  They ate in silence and when finished, they went to work. As Sean weeded the beds, Rowan and Siobhan swept and cleared the paths. They picked up leaves and canes, tossing them into Father Michael’s garden bin as the priest poked around for his best roses.

  All the while, Sean watched Rowan as she concentrated on a bug, as she laughed, as she talked, as she wandered around the garden exploring and cleaning. He focused on her eyes. The mahogany color changed as she moved from shade to sun—more brown when her lids slipped over her irises, more red when her eyes were wide-open. As the sun headed west, Sean stood, his back aching from the work.

  “I better be headin’ home,” Sean said to Father Michael. “What shall we do with these wee ones?”

  “I’ll take them to the pub for supper. Tom should know when Paddy will return.”

  “Very well,” Sean said, lifting his glass to his mouth and swallowing the last of his lemonade. He set the glass back on the table.

  “You behave yourselves,” Sean said as he walked out the gate.

  “Bye, Sean,” Rowan said.

  “Bye, Mr. Morahan,” Siobhan called.

  Sean waved over his shoulder and walked south. A group of twenty or more tourists pedaled haphazardly down the road in the direction he was walking, heading straight into another crowd of bicycles coming north.

  With a growl, Sean stepped off the road and decided to climb through the center of the island to get home. The sky turned a periwinkle blue as the sun sank in the west, taunting his memory, willing him to think on Matthew and his bike. But Sean had spent the day with Rowan, and her mahogany eyes occupied his mind as he tried to understand how to make the color. Achieving the top of the small hill, Sean headed due south. He came to an abrupt stop when he heard a pipe behind him.

  “Joe?” Sean called, spinning around.

  Joe wasn’t there. Now the song came from the south, behind him again, so he turned back in that direction. It continued playing, and Sean, hoping to see his boy again, ran the crest of the island’s center. As he crossed the only road that cut across the island east to west, he felt the wind of passing bicycles on his back and heard several expletives as the cyclists swerved to miss him. But he was not himself and so didn’t take the time to answer the tourists in his true Sean Morahan manner. Instead, he simply trotted into the ditch beside the road and climbed the next rocky hill, clambering over a stone wall as if it wasn’t even there. His head was filled with Joe’s pipe. As he dropped down over the next wall, his foot caught the top and he went tumbling to the ground.

  Blinking up into the sky, Sean lay on his back, wondering how long it had been since he had fallen. He rolled over and as he tucked his knees beneath him, he looked to his left. There, among the wildflowers and weeds, was a stone cross standing cold and stiff in the afternoon light.

  Hastily, he pulled himself up from the ground. He was in the cemetery.

  It had been forty years since he had come to see the dead. The cemetery was located in the middle of the island, and Sean was one who liked to stay close to the sea. Mostly he stayed close to the sea to avoid the cemetery, where memories reached out of the ground to grab his pant legs as he walked by.

  When he noticed the Dooleys’ plot to the left, he shuffled quickly to the right. He most certainly did not wish to hear from them. The Diranes lay about him, with Old Man Dirane chuckling as Sean skirted past the shanachie’s bit of grass.

  Been a long time since we’ve seen you, Sean Morahan, and long since we talked. Sit and I’ll tell you a story.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Sean whispered, his eyes wide.

  Backing away through the cemetery, he tried to determine which direction was the shortest way out. He bumped into a headstone. Peering over his shoulder, he found that he stood on the grave of Old Fionn O’Flaherty. Each generation popped out a Fionn; this one was Sean’s father’s generation. He was the Fionn who’d been there the day his brothers died. Now he leaned against his cross, spiral and knots carved in the stone creating shadows and movement in the rock.

  Sean. It’s not your fault.

  “Leave me be,” Sean said, shrugging the O’Flaherty away, but it was no good. He was standing in the midst of the O’Flahertys, where the grass was kept free of weeds but not wildflowers and the headstones shone brightly in the failing sun.

  Come, sit. Have a cup of tea.

  They lounged about, some plucking fiddles, some whistling softly on their pipes as answers to the birds above, some singing old Irish tunes to the dipping, swaying wildflowers.

  “Leave me alone,” Sean growled, skipping quickly backward through the tidy grass. Bloody O’Flahertys.

  “Leave me be!” he cried, but as he turned around in the direction he was going, he froze. The weeds here were knee-high and yellow. No wildflowers grew through their tangles. As Sean glanced down, he could make out Emmet’s name on the headstone before him. He wanted to look away, but in his peripheral vision he saw the only small patch of green among the Morahans’ weeds. He dared not look that way.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Please, leave me be.”

  Sean scowled at his brothers—Emmet’s and Ronan’s graves grew chill with his cold hate. Because of th
em, his father never forgave him and he was left with no family from his fourteenth year until he married Claire. In the corner of his eye, he caught a movement. He glanced over to Ronan’s headstone and there he found a weed waving to him in the breeze. It was mahogany in color and through the dead golden grasses, it smiled up at him.

  Sean thought then of Rowan, laughing as she tried to speak Irish. He remembered Matthew and Joe and the day he kissed their heads, telling them they were good boys for saving little Liam. He sighed at the memory of warmth and comfort as his head rested upon Claire’s lap. His brothers had never had memories like Sean’s, and Sean wondered if they ever would have experienced them even if they had lived,

  The little weed waved at him again. He smiled back. Perhaps he didn’t hate his brothers. Reticently, he looked to the right, where the only two Morahans with O’Flaherty blood lay resting—his son Matthew and his granddaughter, little Claire. Mary, though not O’Flaherty, rested beside her little girl. The three graves were as green and as nicely kept as all O’Flaherty graves were.

  Sean looked back at his brothers. “I’m sorry for you,” he murmured to Emmet and Ronan. Sliding past Emmet’s headstone, he made his way out of the cemetery. His brothers were notably silent as he passed.

  He headed down the hill, seeing only Rowan’s eyes—her mahogany sunshine. That was how he experienced it. Walking home, the old man tried to clarify in his mind the color of Rowan’s irises. He couldn’t quite understand if the brown on the outside made the circle surrounding her pupil reddish in hue or if it was the reddish circle that made her eyes look just like mahogany wood. After he crossed the road, his feet hit the little ribbon of dirt that led to his house. Walking on, he continued to puzzle on the colors in Rowan’s eyes, and then he had an epiphany.

  “Ha!” he declared to the empty road and the lengthening shadow of the stone wall to the west upon it. “Berries!”

  Rowan trees had berries, and they were red as red. He laughed, and as he went to take one more step toward home, a bird fluttered past his chest and landed upon the wall. It was a mistle thrush and it eyed him.

  Sean backed away.

  Da?

  Peering ahead of him, Sean saw Joe standing upon the road, worry creasing the young man’s brow.

  “Aye, boy?”

  Da, the mistle thrush’s been singing for seven days now. I’ve seen gannets diving where there’s no boat.

  The mistle thrush fluttered its wings as it stood on the stone wall, and then it began to sing.

  “I—I’ve not heard it.”

  Have you seen the gannets, Da?

  “No.”

  There’s a storm comin’.

  “There’s no scent of earth upon the waves, boy.”

  I’m afraid, Da.

  Sean looked away from his son and the past and gazed out to sea. Silhouetted against the setting sun was a great cloud of birds. He squinted. Were they gull or gannet?

  They’re gannets, Da.

  Sean bolted into motion, bursting through the memory of his dead son, flying down the road as fast as his creaking legs could carry him. As he turned onto the gravel that led to his cottage, his cap flew off his head. He didn’t stop to retrieve it. Without taking his eyes off the cloud of birds in the sky, he raced past his house and onto the shore. He flipped his curragh over, pushed it into the surf, and jumped in.

  Da, there’s a storm coming.

  Joe sat on the bench in the boat before the old man.

  “I know, son,” Sean replied as he laid on the oars.

  I’m afraid.

  “I know, son,” Sean choked. He lost his breath in his push to get to the cloud of birds. He rowed and rowed, and finally he stopped and looked over his shoulder.

  The birds were gone. Breathless, he stood, gazing around the purple ocean and the lavender sky for a fluttering of wings. There was none. He closed his eyes, smelling for earth. He smelled only the sea.

  “Were they gannets?” he asked, turning back to the bench on which his son was seated.

  It was empty.

  CHAPTER 30

  The Tree of Life

  The Tree of Life. 1. This stitch looks like a sparse evergreen

  branch, with single pine needles emanating out and up. Patterns such as this have been found in even the most ancient of

  cave paintings throughout Europe. Historically, such paintings

  have been interpreted to mean arrows or lances for hunting, as

  the pattern usually appears in the midst of animals. In opposition, some archaeologists have revised their view, concluding

  instead that ancient humans drew life from both animals and

  plants. Therefore, each deserved depiction in a sacred space.

  Such an interpretation is consistent with the ancient memory of

  the people of the island through their oral history; hence the

  name of this stitch—the Tree of Life. 2. Traditionally, signifies

  long-lived parents, strong children, and the continuation of the

  tribe down through the generations. 3. The tenacity to hang on

  to life, with its joys, sorrows, celebrations, and trials, because

  every waking day brings the rapture of walking through Time

  and Creation.

  —R. Dirane, A Binding Love

  Rebecca was happy to be back on the island. She had picked up Rowan from the Blakes’ and they all ate dinner together at the pub, talking about Mairead and her babies. As they talked, Annie mentioned that Ina had come to the island to help her daughter and had invited Becky to visit to talk about ganseys and see the babies the next day.

  There was a soft wind blowing at their backs when Rebecca and Rowan pedaled to their cottage. Fionn Sr. and Sheila waved from their door as Rebecca bumped off the asphalt onto her gravel drive. Trace lay on the doorstep, waiting. He raced into the house after Rowan and plopped down on the floor at the foot of the bed, almost instantly falling into a sound sleep now that everyone was home.

  Rowan talked about roses and Old Man Dirane’s dinghy while she got ready for bed. Rebecca told her about Sharon’s baby. They also spoke about seeing Mairead’s new babies, although Rebecca warned Rowan that she might not be able to go the first day. She could only imagine the crowd that would be in that house tomorrow.

  Finally, Rebecca lay with her daughter tucked safely into the crook of her body. She listened to the ocean, Rowan’s breath, and Trace’s snores, waiting to go to sleep. She was tired inside and out.

  But as she lay there, burying her face in her pillow, she had a distinct feeling that something was missing—a foreboding feeling that something was not quite right. It rose as a great pain in her heart, and try as she might she couldn’t shake it. Finally she fell into an uneasy sleep, her dreams filled with sweaters and blackberry tarts and mistle thrushes at her window singing “My Lagan Love.”

  She awoke on Saturday morning feeling as if she hadn’t slept at all. She dropped Rowan off at the Blakes’ and made her way toward the Fitzgibbon farm, followed closely by the discomfort from the night before. Something wasn’t right.

  The road rolled beneath her tires as worry rolled around her mind, and it was only when she heard a loud laugh that she looked up from the asphalt. There, up ahead, a large group of tourists had stopped their bicycles in the middle of the road. Rebecca squeezed her brakes hard and came to a breathless halt in the midst of them.

  “Sorry,” a young woman said, smiling weakly as she moved her bike out of the way.

  Rebecca shrugged.

  “You from around here?”

  “Not exactly,” Rebecca replied.

  “You know where the fort is?”

  “It’s straight ahead, a mile or so on.”

  “Look, he’s going out!” a young man declared, bringing his camera to his eye.

  Rebecca glanced over and found that this group of tourists was parked in front of Sean’s house. They were staring at it.

  “What’re those litt
le boats called?” someone that Rebecca couldn’t see asked.

  “It’s a funny word,” someone else replied.

  “Curragh,” Rebecca offered as she watched Sean roll his boat over onto its keel. The camera clicked.

  A sour taste hit Rebecca’s tongue then, and she tried to find the word for it. Being an archaeologist, she had taken several classes in anthropology and often, as she sat in class, watching as images of tribal ceremonies or groups eating dinner before their fires flashed across the sterile white screen, she wondered how it felt to be the object of anthropological interest. What was it like to have strangers come and observe even the most intimate details of your life as a scientific study?

  Sean rolled his curragh into the water and slipped into it. The camera clicked again.

  Disgust. That was the word for the taste in her mouth. She was not of this island, but somehow she felt a part of it, and though she was sure she didn’t like Sean, she was disgusted by some stranger taking a picture of him as a quaint Irishman working his curragh.

  “Excuse me,” she said to no one in particular. “I’m late.”

  The tourists moved their bikes off the road and Rebecca pedaled past them. She rode slower now, her mind filled with tourists and cameras and Sean pulling his boat onto the sand. Her wheels bumped off the pavement and onto the dirt and as she crested the hill, she found Jim outside, holding Tadhg, with his clan of children spread out in the front yard of his home, playing baseball.

  “How are those bees?” Rebecca asked with a grin, riding past him.

  “You’re funny,” he replied.

  She laughed. The front door opened and Rose came out. “Rose? What are you doing here?”

  “We came to spin with you. Liz has more wool.”

  “I’m here to talk to Ina about ganseys,” Rebecca said, pulling her camera out of her basket.

  “Yes, yes, that, too, and tea and spinning.”

  Rebecca sighed and slipped past Rose. The front room was clean and all the lampshades were straight. She smiled. Liz came out of the kitchen and reached for her hand. Rebecca tilted her head, a quizzical smile upon her face. As she followed Liz into the kitchen, she found the right side table spread with tea and cakes. Two spinning wheels sat near two chairs on the left, and on that side of the table lay a small sweater. As she stepped closer to the jumper, her throat tightened. She covered her mouth and tried to back away, but Rose wrapped her fragile arms around Rebecca’s waist.