Casting Off

by Nicole R Dickson

  “It was Mairead who knitted Rowan’s gansey,” Rose whispered, repeating the statement Ina had made.

  “I have to go,” Rebecca said, her cracking voice muffled by her hands.

  “Before you go, would you like to hold wee Sinead?” Ina inquired as she poured tea. “Or maybe baby Mark.”

  “Please, let me go,” Rebecca whispered as she stared at the exact same sweater as the one that had fallen from the bridge. She swallowed, fighting back tears.

  “I just thought you’d like to know what it means. My husband’s mother and her mother and her mother before her knitted this pattern for every child born to these islands. Sharon’s one of your best friends and Peg is one of mine. So—Peg and I thought a shanachie gansey should be knitted for Rowan.”

  Rebecca’s body shuddered, the memory of Rowan’s little jumper falling into the black waters of the Pacific Ocean pouring across her mind. Rose and Liz pushed her forward to sit next to one of the spinning wheels.

  “It’s time to spin, Becky,” Rose said. “Have a sip of tea and then we’ll spin.”

  “Is it time for tea?” Maggie’s voice asked from behind Rebecca.

  “Becky’s just sitting down for hers,” Rose noted as she seated herself in the chair opposite Rebecca.

  “I’ve brought your DVD camera from your bike, Becks. I’ll turn it on,” Maggie offered.

  “Don’t,” Rebecca begged.

  “This isn’t about what the gansey means to you, Becky,” Liz said. “It’s about what it means to all of us. Set the camera up, will you, please, Maggie?”

  “The pattern isn’t so much its stitches separately but rather what it means all together,” Rose explained.

  “My husband’s family was the shanachies of these islands,” Ina began. “The storytellers. The keepers of the old ways—historians. Some’s as say these jumper patterns was started in the early 1900s. Some’s as say it was the men who knitted. I don’t know the truth of that, but what is fact is that this pattern has been around since before we were pushed from our lands to these small spots of bitter stone in the west.”

  “The Romans?” Liz asked.

  “Some’s as say it was so far back. When the Celts were pushed off onto the island of Eire itself.”

  “You getting this, Maggie?” Rose inquired.

  “Aye. Camera’s running.”

  “This pattern has only one recognizable stitch. The rest is not as three-dimensional as the modern ganseys we knit. Very flat and simple. See?” Ina pointed to the sweater. Rebecca didn’t look.

  “This jumper is given to the newborn of these islands. A memory from the past from generations who suffered at the hand of those who would push them off their lands and out of their lives. Romans, Normans, English, Scots. All the same. But we give this to our children and it means that we are here—now. To persist with a tenacious hope, to believe that tomorrow will come. We sing, Becky, like it’s the brightest day ever and we live in rapture. Not that new idea of your American countrymen, who say the rapture is the end of the world and in a blink of the eye you’ll be off this planet and into the Lord’s arms. Young people are so simple. Americans are young. We’re old.

  “Our rapture is waking every day. To get in your boat and feed your family and see your grandchildren and live lightly so something is left for them. And when you die, there is still tomorrow—there is still the day you fall asleep from this world and awake in another. Rapture, Becky, even in death. Rapture in the bittersweet life of our islands—the rock bringing us hardship and life and love. That is this gansey and it is what my family gives as a memory to each who is born on these islands, from those who’s come before.”

  When Rebecca gazed up at Ina, she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. They burned her cheeks. In her peripheral vision, she could see Maggie leaning closer to the sweater, camera in hand.

  “It says all that, does it?” Maggie asked.

  The women laughed. So did Rebecca. She wiped her cheeks.

  “It’s all right now, Becky,” Rose whispered, taking Rebecca’s hand. “Good to let it go.”

  “That is what it says. And it is why Mairead came to this island.”

  “I thought she came ’cause of Jim.”

  “Who in their right mind would marry Jim?” Mairead asked from behind. Everyone turned around and found her standing in the kitchen door, holding her babies. They all laughed again.

  “Here, have some tea,” Rose offered as she stood up to help Mairead with the babies. Shakily, Rebecca picked up her own cup.

  “Truth to say, I do love him. He’s a Dirane after all,” Mairead said with a smile as she handed a baby to Rose.

  “A deranged Dirane!” Maggie declared.

  That brought a great peal of laughter from the older women.

  “Maybe, but a Dirane he is. And when Aunt Claire left, there was no one here to knit the ganseys.”

  “Claire,” Rebecca whispered over her tea.

  “Here, hold a baby. These warm bundles offer great perspective,” Rose said, gently depositing a small purple swaddling and baby in Rebecca’s arms. The baby wiggled a bit, but didn’t open its eyes.

  “Sinead or Mark?” Rebecca asked quietly.

  “Mark,” Mairead replied.

  “He’s beautiful, Mairead.” Mark had on his shanachie’s gansey. Rebecca could see the ancient spirals and knots. They looked very much like Fionn’s drawings. She knew only one stitch, though, by name. It was the Tree of Life.

  “You know, Sean’s quite changed,” Maggie said, turning off the camera and setting it down before picking up her tea. “Well, didn’t I just go to Father Michael’s, looking for Rowan and Siobhan.”

  “Where was Rowan?” Rebecca asked quickly.

  “Ah, safe, Becky. She and Siobhan are always about the town. Anyway, they didn’t come when called and so we were out looking for them.”

  “Why didn’t they come when called?” Rebecca asked, wondering why Rowan was running around the town with all the tourists about.

  “Becky, let me finish.”

  “Sorry.” Rebecca remembered to breathe and shifted Mark in her arms.

  “Siobhan and Rowan and every child in town,” Maggie continued, pointedly looking over at Rebecca, “were out and about. It was really warm. So, there I was, poking my head into Father Michael’s garden, and who do you think is sitting in the shade there?”

  “Sean?” Rose queried in disbelief.

  “Aye. And I say I’m looking for Rowan and Siobhan and doesn’t Sean just stand up and tell me where they are.”

  “How does he know?” Rebecca asked.

  “He’s been spending a lot of time with them at the Blakes’, teaching them Irish and tin whistles,” Mairead replied.

  Rebecca looked up in surprise and met Mairead’s steady eyes, but still she frowned.

  “He goes to get them, and sure enough, he brings them back to the father’s for lunch. He actually sits down with Father Michael and the girls and has lunch.”

  Awed silence met Maggie’s last sentence. Rebecca looked up at the ceiling, wishing she had never gone to Dublin.

  “And then, he stays and helps Father Michael clean his garden.”

  “No!” Liz exclaimed, her eyes wide. “He helped somebody?”

  “That he did. With the girls. And then, about suppertime, he takes his leave and Father Michael returns the girls to Paddy at the pub, who told Tom, and Tom, not truly believing it, told me. I had to go ask the father myself.”

  Ina whistled.

  “Aye,” Liz said. “Wonder what’s happened to move him so.”

  Rebecca gazed over at Mairead. They stared at each other and said nothing. Holding Mark while he slept, Rebecca silently stewed, angry at Rowan for disobeying her. But the longer she held the baby, the more she realized it was not Rowan’s responsibility to keep herself from Sean. Nor was it Mairead’s or anyone else’s to care for her daughter. It was Rebecca’s.

  When Liz took Mark, Rebecca finished h
er tea and then Rose helped her to spin on the wheel. As the women talked of the past and children and the wonder of Sean Morahan, Rebecca quietly spun, watching the chaos of wool wind itself into useful yarn.

  When lunchtime came, Rebecca excused herself, saying she had been away from Rowan and wanted to spend some time with her. She stepped onto her bike, waving at Jim and his seven children, still playing baseball, as she headed over the hill. As she hit the asphalt she turned right toward town. But she had no intention of going directly to get Rowan. With the wind blowing in her face, Rebecca pedaled north to Sean Morahan’s house.

  CHAPTER 31

  Chevron with Bobble

  Chevron with Bobble. 1. A chevron with a single bobble placed within its angle. 2. A person who brings abrupt change.

  —R. Dirane, A Binding Love

  On Saturday morning Sean opened his eyes. Something was wrong. He lay in his bed, listening to his breath, feeling his heart, slowly moving his arms and legs. Whatever was wrong, it wasn’t inside of him, so he rolled over and felt the familiar crackling of his back as his feet hit the cold stone floor.

  Sitting there, he listened for sounds of trouble, but there was only the gentle breeze in the thatch and the song of a mistle thrush. He stood up, slid into his pants and dark blue gansey, and headed for his front door. With no shoes on, he stepped outside, closed his eyes, and smelled the wind. Nothing was there but the scent of sea salt and blackberry bushes. Peering into the bushes, he found the mistle thrush, singing away as if it sat in a gale.

  “You’re daft,” he muttered. The bird flew away.

  The old man went back inside and put on his socks, shoes, and hat. In the kitchen, he shoved two pieces of bread and a thermos of water into a canvas sack, grabbed his fishing rod, and shuffled out his front door without a cup of tea. He went to his small curragh. He stood still and watched the tide roll in from the horizon, following the waves as they crashed upon the sand and then poured back into the sea. Nothing. Everything was just as it had been the day before. But something was still not right.

  He rolled the curragh over and pushed it into the waves. Slipping over the edge into the boat, the old fisherman grabbed the oars, laying on them, rowing as hard as he could away from shore. As soon as the curragh sat on the ocean, bumping gently on the waves, he stood and faced west. The sun was at his back as he watched the falling and rolling ocean for changes in color and rising mist.

  There, far to the south, he found what he was seeking. The old man sat down and rowed in that direction, watching the water next to his curragh as he moved through it. It turned a certain greenish black, and there he stopped. He peered down into the depths of the sea, finding rainbows and, now and then, flickering silver as light pierced the dark water.

  He removed his pipe from his sleeve and played. It was a tune beckoning that which lives below to come to that which lives above. Little high notes twittered as if a tiny, tinkling rain tapped the top of the great ocean, rapping gently at an unseen door, to make the occupants inside so curious they would rise to see who it was. They did. They came as a greater flashing of silver below the green-black water.

  Sean pulled the pipe from his lips and watched them. For a few minutes, they were confused, for there was nothing new to see; it was just a large black shadow against the bright light above. The glitter of silver slowly dissipated, as it always did, becoming nothing more than rainbows and an occasional flicker of gray light.

  Slumping back into the boat, Sean removed his hat and scratched his head. He felt his curragh rise and fall on the waves. The old fisherman had been upon the ocean for many years and had seen it change. The fish were far fewer now than they were forty, fifty years ago, and their patterns of schooling had changed. Sometimes Sean would pull rocks of oil from the sea, the black goo having congealed as it floated in the salt water—little gifts left behind by oil rigs or passing freighters. The sea was a far noisier place than it had been when he was a boy, especially when the shipping lanes moved. All these changes had happened over time—some of them slowly, some of them abruptly. But there was no new change upon the sea that Sean could find this day. He sighed and put his hat back on his head.

  “Something is still not right,” he whispered to his oars, and grabbing them, he rowed farther west.

  He rowed all morning, circumnavigating the island. But he found everything as quiet as a summer’s day. He stopped for an hour and ate his bread while he fished for his lunch. Finally, wearily, he rowed his boat home. The shore bumped gently beneath the curragh as he pulled the boat onto the sand. He grabbed the three fish he had caught, laid them on the beach, and rolled the boat over. He scaled and gutted the fish on the sand, leaving the entrails there for the keening seagulls circling above, and made his way into the house.

  “Wrong,” Sean grumbled, forgetting to cross himself as he shut the door. In the kitchen, he set the kettle on the stove, then pulled three new potatoes from the drawer, washed them, and put them on to boil. By the time the tea water was bubbling, he had his cast-iron pan heated for oil. He poured the water into the teapot, and just as he was about to lay the fish in the pan, there was a knock on the door.

  Sean froze. He peered over his shoulder. Whatever was wrong was now knocking on his door, and he had an uneasy feeling that he himself was now the flickering of silver beneath the green-black water, being beckoned to the surface. The knock rolled through his house again. He turned off the stove.

  Moving silently through his house, he reached for the curtain of the window. He stopped. Why was he afraid? He was no coward. He let go the curtain, grabbed the doorknob, and flung wide his door. There, standing just off his doorstep, was a young woman. Her hair was dark, her skin darker than an Irishman’s, and her eyes were a certain shade of brown. It was her eyes that gave her away, for they were mahogany and Sean was very familiar with that color.

  “Sean Morahan?” she inquired.

  “Aye.”

  “My name is Rebecca Moray. I’m Rowan’s mother.”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Good. Then you’ll please tell me what your intentions are with my daughter?”

  Sean opened his eyes wider. That was a funny question.

  “She’s a little young for me, don’t you think, Mrs. Moray?” he asked with a friendly smile.

  Rowan’s mother did not smile back. In fact, a very chilly breeze blew across Sean’s face from her direction. “I’m not Mrs. Moray and you know what I mean. I want to know what you want from her.”

  “I don’t want anything from her.”

  “Then why are you hanging around her?”

  “Perhaps—Rowan’s mother—she’s hanging around me.”

  “She doesn’t need anything from you. It’s you making this relationship necessary.”

  “She needs a father—Rowan’s mother. Perhaps that is what she’s looking for here.” Sean placed his hand flat upon his heart.

  “What?”

  “She talks about her dad, you know. And a certain bird missing from a bush.” Sean chuckled. “She wants to see him. Maybe if you’d take her back home to him, she’d not be wanting to spend so much time with me.”

  Rebecca stepped onto the doorstep. Sean moved back farther into his house. He peered into those mahogany eyes and felt that chilled breeze flow down his spine.

  “I don’t need you to tell me what my daughter needs, Mr. Morahan. And not that it is any of your business, but Rowan’s father is dead.”

  Sean’s eyes widened again. Rowan hadn’t mentioned that. As he rolled his conversations with the little girl through his head, seeking any comment on the death of her father, Rebecca stepped through his door, bringing her face within five inches of his.

  He was caught. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. And as he looked into the brown depths of this woman’s eyes, he felt what he had felt as he sank into the bitter ocean when he had fallen out of the curragh while fishing with his brothers. It was cold and dead and gray, without a tattering
of flesh or tiny bone whispering of a life before. It was the nothing at the bottom of the ocean pulling him down—a suffocating darkness.

  “I know you,” Rowan’s mother whispered. “We’ve met before. Your hair is different, your accent is different and your face is older. But I am very familiar with you. I see that black hole inside of you, Sean Morahan. I know what it is. And I am now asking you respectfully to stay away from my daughter. If you don’t, the next time I stand here won’t be as pleasant.”

  Rowan’s mother stepped back, holding Sean with her eyes. Then she turned and walked to a bicycle that lay on the dirt behind her.

  “Good day to you, Mr. Morahan,” she said without looking back. Straddling her bike, Rowan’s mother pedaled away.

  Sean stood there, immobile, watching her go. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing, so he took a great gasp as Rowan’s mother reached the road and headed north.

  Slowly, purposefully, Sean shut his door. He looked around, sure he had been doing something before he had opened the door, but what it was, he couldn’t remember. His legs shook, and stumbling over to the kitchen, he fell into a chair. Propping his elbows on the table, he held his head in his hands, breathing in and out, closing his mind to the dark memory of those mahogany eyes, the depths of the ocean, and the cold breeze on his spine.

  “Wrong,” said he.

  CHAPTER 32

  Diamond/Diamond Within

  Diamond/Diamond Within. 1. A column of diamonds with another diamond pattern knitted within each one. 2. A secret.

  —R. Dirane, A Binding Love

  Rebecca rode home, furious at herself. Here was a man she knew nothing about and he somehow had been talking to Rowan about her little girl’s worries. Rowan had mentioned nothing about missing her father to her—ever. Nor had she talked seriously about concerns regarding the mistle thrush. Her questions had just seemed like normal curiosity. Pedaling faster, Rebecca felt her daughter slipping away. Had she experienced much of their time on the island with her? She’d been so busy trying to research the book that she hadn’t even taken the time to take Rowan to the fort. Her daughter was all around town, playing with Siobhan, making friends, while Rebecca was—She skidded to a halt.