Casting Off

by Nicole R Dickson

  Joe’s the strongest. Joe will bring them back.

  A tear fell into his teacup, making tiny concentric circles that rolled to the cup’s edge. Sean breathed in, remembering Claire’s eyes as he last looked at them—the eyes that saw the truth the night he tried to close them forever. The blue-green terror gazed back at him as another tear hit his tea. Then he saw Rowan’s mother, staring at him from the deck of Iollan’s boat. He was alive, but only because of her—pulled from the cold, dark death that had called to him like a siren from ages past. He had heard its call, heeded its beckoning song, and yielded to its embrace, only to find himself in pain and freezing in a curragh next to Rowan and Siobhan. He had another chance—to do what, he wasn’t sure, but another chance nevertheless.

  Watching Rowan’s mother turn about his sons’ room as she took in the full lives of his boys, Sean knew it was she who had pulled him from the sea. Her eyes had looked at him as he was going under the water just as Claire had once looked at him. It wasn’t love. It was worth. He had saved her little girl because he could do nothing else, and for that act Rowan’s mother felt him worthy. She pulled him from the cold, giving him life, just as Claire had done. Claire had married him, pulling him in from the bitter life of the Morahan family, giving him life in the warmth of the O’Flahertys and the Dooleys and every other family on the island whose blood surged through her veins.

  “What do I do?” he asked of the fire. His heart and mind and body hurt. He was all alone. Usually when Sean felt this way he would go into his sons’ room and knit—weave together one of their stories. But now there were others in the house and he couldn’t get to his needles or his boys. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t think of sleep. He had another chance. He yet lived. Suddenly the old man stopped thinking, looking sideways at his bedroom door. It had been many years since he had opened the wardrobe door and touched the top shelf. He knew what he needed to finish. It was the thing he had started and stopped over the years. It was almost done, knitted row by row, piece by piece, but he could never bring himself to complete it. Slowly, Sean stood and walked into his bedroom. Tiptoeing across the floor as if to keep sleeping ghosts at rest, he opened his wardrobe. He felt around the top shelf until his hands came to rest on a pair of knitting needles poking through a small wad of fisherman’s net. Pulling the net down, he quietly closed the wardrobe door and crept back out into the front room. He sat down on the chair and unraveled the net.

  From the net’s stiff, thin cables, Sean pulled out the unfinished gansey, a ball of blue-green yarn, and his knitting needles. He laid the sweater pieces about his feet—the cool, deep blue-green warmed by the fire. He picked up the front panel, which was halfway complete. Cutting the yarn that had kept the whole thing from unraveling, Sean slid the loose stitches onto his needle. And as the storm raged on beyond his door like the guilt within his soul, Sean sat before his fire and did what he had not done for forty years. He sat quietly, spending time with his wife.

  CHAPTER 41

  Ripping Back

  Ripping Back. 1. The act of pulling out stitches because a mistake has been made. This is a very drastic thing to do and should be reserved for times when there is a serious error in the pattern or the fabric is coming undone. Ripping back requires removing the stitches from the needles and pulling out the yarn, unraveling the work. It is best for a beginner to try to find a veteran knitter to help with ripping back because then it is more likely that the entire work will not be lost. A veteran knitter can spot the exact place where the error has occurred and can “unknit” the work to the point of the error. 2. Finding good counsel. 3. A priest.

  —R. Dirane, A Binding Love

  There was a knock on the door. Sean opened his eyes. He could see the morning light shining through the window. He lay stiff. As he moved slightly, every muscle in his body cried out in pain. Rolling over with a grunt, he tried to lift himself from the mattress, but decided against it, for there, next to the old man, was his wife—all that she had lovingly given him knitted in blue-green. The knock came louder.

  “Morahan,” Father Michael called from outside. Sean pulled himself up from the bed, his back screaming at him for having to carry weight again.

  “Just a minute,” he called, a cough from somewhere deep in his chest punctuating his sentence. He stood up, still dressed in his clothes from the night before.

  “I’m comin’,” he growled, and grabbing his wife from his bed, he opened his bedroom door. He froze. There, standing in his kitchen, was Rowan’s mother. She was as dressed as he and looked back at him with the same expression that he was sure rested on his face—exhaustion.

  The old man tried to smile, but he couldn’t, as he was not sure if that look in Rowan’s mother’s eyes would stay as blank as it was at that moment or turn into something else. If she looked at him like he had worth, he’d be happy. If she gazed, instead, with those bottom-of-the-ocean eyes, he felt he would drop dead right where he was standing. So he nodded and quickly looked away lest she give some indication of what she thought of him at that moment.

  “Siobhan?” Annie called from beyond the door.

  “Ma!” Siobhan answered, racing from behind Rebecca to the door. She flung it open, and there on Sean’s doorstep were the father and Annie Blake. Annie lifted her little girl, wearing Brendan’s yellow gansey, into her arms, weeping as she stepped into the house. Paddy followed, grabbing his wife and daughter in his arms and burying his face in their hair.

  “Da,” Siobhan cried.

  From behind Paddy, Sheila and Fionn Sr. entered. Fionn Sr. carried a large cardboard box.

  “Son?” he called, setting the box on the floor.

  “Dad!” Fionn replied, scratching his tangles of red hair as he moved past Rebecca. He grabbed his father, laughing as he held on.

  Sean’s chest tightened. And then Rowan skipped out, wearing Li am’s bright apricot lesson. She grabbed her mother’s hand.

  “Rowan! I’m so happy ta see ya!” Fionn Sr. said, releasing his son and plucking the little girl from her mother’s side. He swung her around in a circle, kissing her cheek as he did so. Sean watched Rowan giggle, and a smile cracked his old skin. When Fionn Sr. stopped spinning, his quiet black eyes rested on Sean. The old man stepped back a little.

  “That was something else ya did there, Morahan.”

  “It was nothin’,” Sean muttered.

  “Rowin’ a curragh through a gale isn’t nothin’,” Paddy Blake said.

  “And you, Rebecca Moray! Jumpin’ off the boat, makin’ my son follow ya!” Fionn Sr. yelled.

  Rowan’s mother’s eyes went wide and she shook her head. Fionn grabbed her around the waist and nuzzled her cheek.

  “She rowed like she was born to it,” he said. “You should have seen her, Paddy.”

  They all laughed as Annie Blake released her daughter and her husband. She crossed the room and pulled Rowan’s mother into her arms tightly.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For savin’ my daughter.”

  Then Annie let go of Rebecca and stepped over to Sean. She wrapped her arms around his stiff neck, kissing him on his old cheek. He was unsure what to do, so he patted her on her shoulders, his heart rising to his throat.

  “Thanks for savin’ Siobhan, Sean,” Annie said, pulling away.

  “And Rowan,” Fionn Sr. added.

  Sean nodded, looking at the gray ash in his hearth.

  “I—I should make a fire,” he said.

  “We brought breakfast,” Sheila announced, kissing Rowan on the cheek as she headed into the kitchen. “Would ya bring that box, son?”

  “That’s a beautiful gansey there, Sean,” Annie Blake said, looking at Claire’s sweater in Sean’s arms. “You should let Becky look at it.”

  Paddy, Annie, Siobhan, and Rowan followed the O’Flahertys into the kitchen. Sean set the gansey on the back of his sofa without looking over to Rowan’s mother. He bent down and grabbed two bricks of peat.

  “So who’s the gansey f
or, Sean?” Father Michael asked.

  Sean bolted up straight, his back protesting as he did so. The old man had been completely oblivious to the priest standing there. The wind had calmed, brushing Father Michael’s hair gently, playfully, through the open door, and Sean saw that the Irish sky was blue and smiling behind him. It was as if there had been no gale at all.

  “It’s my wife,” Sean said quietly as the priest walked over and picked up the gansey.

  “Your wife made it?” Father Michael asked.

  “No,” Rebecca and Sean replied together. Sean glanced at her. She looked into him with her mahogany eyes and then down at her feet.

  “No?” the priest inquired.

  “I made it,” Sean said.

  “You knit?” Father Michael asked.

  “Ina says the men used to knit the ganseys,” Rowan’s mother said.

  “The women spun the wool.”

  “Is that so?” Father Michael declared, rubbing the woolen gansey between his hands. “I never knew that. So this is for your wife.”

  “Aye,” Sean replied, turning to the fireplace.

  “I have something to show you two,” Father Michael said, looking at the gansey.

  Sean turned back to the priest.

  “You both have to see this. Would you mind coming with me? It’s a short walk before breakfast. I’ll wait outside while you put your shoes on.”

  The priest stepped out into the Irish world beyond Sean’s door. The old man looked over to Rowan’s mother, who gave him a questioning glance. Shrugging, Sean turned to his bedroom to get his shoes, then returned to the living room and walked out his front door. Rowan’s mother followed shortly after.

  “Come on, then,” Father Michael said, tossing Claire’s jumper over his shoulder and heading up the gravel walkway.

  “Ya want to leave that gansey here?” Sean asked, walking after the priest.

  “No. I’ll take it with me.”

  Rowan’s mother walked just in front of Sean. She looked back at him with that same quizzical gaze. The old man shrugged again. He followed the priest and Rowan’s mother off his gravel drive and across the road. On the other side, the three of them stepped into the ditch and began climbing the hill.

  “I was surprised to hear you saved Sean’s life last night, Rebecca,” Father Michael said.

  “He was drowning,” Rowan’s mother replied.

  “So you’d risk your life for a man like Sean after all?” Father Michael asked of her.

  Rowan’s mother stopped. So did Sean. He stopped walking. He stopped breathing. He held on, waiting for her to reply.

  “He saved my daughter. I—I watched him go under. I just saw his sweater falling beneath me in the water.”

  “I see,” the priest replied.

  Sean let go his breath and continued following Father Michael. His mind raced with pictures of Siobhan and Rowan huddled together in Old Man Dirane’s dinghy.

  “I would always save a child if I had it in my power to do so,” Sean said as he walked past Rowan’s mother. She was still halted in her tracks.

  “Is that so, Sean?” Father Michael asked. “I’m surprised to hear that.”

  Sean stopped again.

  “The sea took my boys. It wasn’t going to get my girls, too.”

  “Aye, that was an awful storm last night. A forty-year gale. As bad as the storm that took your sons.”

  “It was,” Sean replied.

  “I was wondering why you didn’t take your curragh out after your boys all those years ago?”

  Sean watched Father Michael continue up the hill without looking back, his eyes wide in wonder.

  “I thought of it last night,” Sean said. “I didn’t know they were in trouble. I didn’t know they needed rescuing.”

  “I see. After all, Eoman and Paddy got home last night all right. Iollan’s engine had trouble and their boats were listing. Men, grown fishermen, would take care of each other.”

  “Aye,” Sean said.

  Rowan’s mother passed him. The priest was quite a bit ahead now, so Sean had to pick up his pace to catch up.

  “Where are we going?” Rebecca asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  Sean saw the stone peeping out over the edge of the hill. He slowed down as he caught up to Rowan’s mother and Father Michael. Together, they crested the hill and entered the cemetery through a gap in the wall where the stones had tumbled from their place.

  “Someone needs to fix that,” Father Michael said quietly, as he picked his way through the rocks strewn about the golden grass next to Sean. The old man grabbed his heart as his ribs crushed his lungs. He didn’t want to be here.

  “Long time since we’ve been in this place together, Sean,” the priest said.

  Sean nodded his head, staring at Old Man Dirane, who leaned against his headstone, smoking his pipe.

  “Here.” The priest held out Claire’s gansey. “Why don’t you take this to your boy? Show him how you see his mother.”

  “I’m afraid,” the old man whispered.

  “Is a man afraid of his own son?” Father Michael asked.

  Sean gazed over to the priest and then back to Old Man Dirane. Shakily, he reached out and took the offered gansey.

  “You want me to go with you?”

  “No,” Sean said quietly.

  As Sean passed the headstones, he saw all of them—the Diranes, the Dooleys, the O’Flahertys—standing silently in the blue morning sky. He didn’t look over to the Morahan plot, for he had no desire to see his father or listen to his chiding and mockery. Instead, he looked back, finding Father Michael on this side of the cemetery wall and Rowan’s mother, looking very pale, just beyond it. He met her eyes. She shook her head.

  “Been a long while that you’ve been keeping your gaze behind—in the past,” Father Michael said.

  “Been a long while the storm’s been comin’ in from that direction,” Sean replied.

  “A fisherman must look ahead, even in a storm,” the priest said.

  “ ’ Tis true.” Sean nodded, and so he turned his head and stopped breathing, for not fifteen yards from him stood his son Matthew.

  “Sean?” Father Michael called.

  “I’m dying,” Sean said.

  “No. You’re living,” replied the priest.

  Matthew’s red hair shimmered in the morning light. Sean had not remembered it being so shiny.

  Da.

  Sean gazed into his son’s black eyes. He took so much from the O’Flaherty side of Claire’s family. Sean opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  It’s quite a burden you’ve been carryin’ there, Da.

  “What can I do?” Sean whispered.

  Look around you, Da. The O’Flahertys. The Diranes. The Dooleys. How many sons died in the war you were in?

  “That was different.”

  Asking the young to go out into a storm to care for the family. Doesn’t matter if it’s the sea or battle. It’s been done in many ways for thousands of years.

  “But you were my boys. Joe told me—” Sean’s voice cracked. He wiped his watery eyes. “He said you were men. I didn’t see it. You were my boys.”

  And each moment since, that mistake has clouded every joyful moment of your life. Do you really think Joe wanted you to live like that?

  “I took his life!”

  Would he take yours?

  “No. Not Joe.”

  But you’ve been making him take your life for forty years.

  Sean blinked as the periwinkle sky above poured over Matthew.

  You’ve not thought about that, have you, Da?

  Sean blinked again. Did that make sense?

  You’ve been so busy reliving that one night, you’ve kept all of us—Matthew, Brendan, Liam, Joe, my wife, my daughter, my mother—all of us—here with you on this side of Eternity. Making us take your life every day instead of living it yourself. You need to let go so we can go home.

  “That’s too simple,” Sean w
hispered.

  We love you, Da. It is that simple.

  A blue-green shadow passed to Sean’s right, and when he turned to it, he stopped breathing. Claire stood next to Mary’s headstone, holding the baby. She was exactly as Sean remembered her, as she had stood on that misty beach early in their marriage, waiting for him to come in from the storm. He gazed at her dress and then down at the jumper in his hand. He had tried so many dyes to achieve that color and had thought he had done so, but Claire’s dress was slightly greener than was his memory of it and so his jumper was not perfectly matched.

  “Claire?” Sean called softly.

  She glanced up, tears rolling from her beautiful blue-green eyes. Sean fell to his knees.

  “Claire, I’m sor—”

  Claire shook her head and turned her back to him. Her shoulders shook as she wept.

  “Claire, I need—”

  She shook her head again.

  He needed to talk to her—to tell her he was sorry. He needed her to listen and as he devised ways of making Claire listen, he glanced over his shoulder. There he found Rowan’s mother staring at him, white as a ghost. Turning back to Claire, he laid the jumper on the grass of Mary’s grave.

  “I made you a gansey, Claire. Look, it has all your sons on it.”

  Reticently, Claire turned her head and looked down at the jumper.

  “Here is Matthew on the front. See the wheels? Remember that day, Claire? The day Matthew tried to ride the bike. The sky was so blue that day.”

  Periwinkle.

  “Aye. I made his jumper that color. Yours is the color of your eyes.”

  He was hurt.

  Sean looked down.

  “He was hurt, Claire. And I made him get back on. Made him. I’ve thought a lot about that day.”

  And what have you thought, Sean Morahan?

  “That sometimes ’tis the more courageous man who can admit to himself that he cannot do a thing than the man who tries always to overcome. Matthew knew that.”

  Aye, Sean. He did.

  Sean nodded and flipped the sweater over.

  “Here is Brendan. See the halos? He learned to walk that day.”