Sandcastles

by Luanne Rice

  “I have them now,” she said softly. “The worst part is remembering how close he came to killing you.”

  “I know.”

  “Last night,” she whispered, “when I saw Peter’s father getting right in your face, it all came back. I didn’t even think—I just acted. My heart was beating so fast, I just felt it happening all over again. I shoved him, just the way I did Greg White. ‘Don’t hurt my father…’ I’ve been dreaming that for six years. Last night I yelled it at Mr. Drake, and something clicked inside. It felt like the missing piece.”

  “You’re safe now, Regis,” he said. “And so am I.”

  Golden light from the setting sun spread all over the river and Sound, over the fields and vineyard, over the slate roof of the Academy building, and the long stone walls meandering from west to east, all the way to Ireland.

  Long shadows had begun to spring up—from trees, rocks, the steeple, the walls, the hill itself. They hid things that would be obvious in midday: a rabbit eating grass by the wall, a slash of red foliage in the maples near the pond, the glimmer of purple grapes on the vines, Aunt Bernie and Brendan sitting on a bench by the Blue Grotto. And Regis’s mother…

  Hidden in the wall’s shadow, Regis looked down the hill, saw her mother sitting right in the middle of her father’s labyrinth—the very center of all the stones he had gathered, silvery and magical in the soft, summery light. The tide was coming in, waves lapping up toward the biggest rocks on the labyrinth’s outer edge.

  It was a strange place for her mother to be waiting. On an August evening, she might be home painting or getting dinner ready. She might be walking with Cece or talking to Agnes. But Aunt Bernie had called her after she’d found Regis in the library, so maybe she was sitting in the labyrinth, gathering herself for the talk they’d have later.

  “There’s your mother,” her father said.

  “I noticed,” Regis said.

  “She can’t see us sitting in the shadows here,” he said. “Let’s go down and show her you’re okay.”

  “Aunt Bernie told her.”

  “It’s not the same as letting her see you with her own eyes,” he said. “It would make her happy.”

  “I thought maybe you might want to talk to her alone,” Regis said.

  Her father looked surprised, as if he hadn’t thought she could tell. His lined cheeks turned ruddy, blushing.

  “She wants to see you,” he said.

  “Dad,” Regis said, squeezing his hand, “she wants to see you, too. Besides, you have to tell her about Chris Kelly.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I heard you tell him he should stick around,” Regis said. “You knew what I was going to say, didn’t you?”

  “I feared,” he said, touching her cheek. “I didn’t know for sure.”

  “Am I going to be in a lot of trouble?” she asked.

  He shook his head—but of course he would. That was her father, always trying to protect her from the worst. No matter what, she was just so glad to have told what she remembered. So they could all face the truth.

  And be together again.

  Twenty-eight

  Sister Bernadette sat beside Brendan McCarthy, staring down at the ground, looking at his shoes. Funny, she had stared into his beautiful blue eyes, and taken note of his slender fingers, and listened to the deep intelligence and sensitivity of his spirit pouring forth as he spoke. But nothing, none of it, made her throat catch quite in the way that looking at his shoes did.

  “So, you see,” he continued, laying out his “case,” his most persuasive arguments, “once I checked with Catholic Charities, and found out my mother had come from Star of the Sea…and once I realized my father’s last name was Kelly, then it all just seemed so clear.”

  “I can imagine how it would,” Bernie said, unable to take her eyes off those shoes. They were brown, laced up, quite scuffed. They looked to be size 9 or 10; Brendan was a medium-sized boy, with medium-sized feet.

  “I didn’t even start looking until a couple of years ago,” Brendan said.

  “No?” she asked. She thought of her boy; how he had looked as a baby. She had held him the day of his birth, fed him, gazed into his eyes. She had marvelled at his feet—perfect tiny feet, with ten perfect toes. She had kissed them.

  Over the years, she had imagined him learning to walk. Now, looking down at Brendan’s feet, she imagined him taking his first steps, learning to tie his shoes.

  “No,” he said. “I thought it would be disloyal to my parents. The ones who raised me.”

  “And what changed your mind?” Bernie asked.

  “Well,” he said, thinking. “Something inside me. It won’t go away. I keep thinking, I want to know the people who gave me my life. It doesn’t mean I love my adoptive parents any less.” He paused. “They drink. A lot. They held it together for a long time, but when I went to college and started working…it got really bad. They’re just lost.”

  “The grief of losing your brother must have been terrible,” Bernie said. “For you all.”

  “It has been,” Brendan said. “I don’t want to blame them for what they feel. They loved him so much.”

  “That doesn’t mean they don’t love you, too.”

  “I know,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to hurt them. But they’ve been—not there. I mean, they’re sitting in the room with me, we’re all together, but they’re just—gone. Not present. It made me think they might not even notice if I tried to find my birth parents.”

  “And that’s what led you here,” Bernie said.

  “Yes,” Brendan said.

  And as Bernie raised her eyes—from his tired, scuffed old shoes, to his bright, sharp, intelligent blue eyes—she saw Tom standing just behind him. Perhaps he’d been standing in the background this whole time, listening. But now that Bernie had seen him, he came forward.

  “Hi,” Tom said, staring at Brendan as if he was taking in every detail—the shape of his face, the profusion of freckles, his slightly crooked bottom teeth.

  “Hi,” Brendan said. Suddenly he seemed shy. He had been so friendly, and open, and exuberant. But at the sight of Tom, whose entire being was gleaming, shimmering, as if he really were in the presence of his only child, the boy turned slightly inward. Tom wanted it all, he wanted his family to be here right now, sitting on this bench by the Blue Grotto, he wanted Brendan to be their son. Bernie moved over a few inches, and so did Brendan; Tom sat down on the other end, with the boy in the middle.

  “Tom,” Bernie said. “Brendan was just telling me that he started searching…”

  “I heard,” Tom said. “I know that he is looking for his birth parents. And that his search has led him here. To us.”

  Brendan nodded. “Well, to you…there was a Star of the Sea reference, and the last name being Kelly…”

  Bernie closed her eyes. Brendan couldn’t know about her and Tom. He had no idea she was thinking she might be his mother. She was missing vespers, and she could hear the voices of the sisters, high and clear. They were singing the psalms, and their prayers rose and mixed with the summer air and filled her heart. How often, after her baby was born, had she sat in that chapel, singing line after line, page after page, believing there weren’t enough prayers or psalms in the world to treat the pain she was feeling?

  “It all makes such sense,” Tom said, his voice low and thrilling.

  “Do your adoption papers say where you were born?” Bernie asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Brendan said, fumbling in his pocket. The fact that he pulled them out—that he carried them with him—pierced her heart more than almost anything. More than his shoes, more than Tom’s expression. “It’s right here—‘Place of Birth: New London, Connecticut. Shoreline General Hospital.’”

  Bernie swore she could hear Tom’s breaking heart echoing off the stones of the Blue Grotto behind them. She could feel the cold despair pouring out of him, and she was shocked to feel it even in herself.

  “
New London?” Tom asked. “You’re sure?”

  Brendan nodded—digging back in his pocket. This time he pulled out a small plastic bracelet—a hospital bracelet just the right size for an infant’s wrist. It was blue, and beneath the words “Shoreline General” was printed “Baby Boy Brendan.”

  “See?” he asked. “They didn’t have a last name for me yet, but apparently my birth mother wanted to make sure I was called Brendan.”

  Bernie looked across his head at Tom, but Tom couldn’t meet her eyes. She could see disappointment welling in his as he gazed down at the document, the bracelet, and the young man he had willed to be their son.

  “Did you want to name me that?” Brendan asked Tom. “Was there a reason?”

  Bernie opened her mouth to reply, to take the burden off Tom. But he beat her to it. His voice was soft and low, filled with compassion and love, and he gazed straight into Brendan’s blue eyes.

  “Our son was born in Dublin,” Tom said.

  “No,” Brendan said, looking confused. “I was born in New London…”

  “Dublin, Ireland,” Tom said. “We had gone there to research some family history, the year before Bernie…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence: the year before Bernie joined the convent.

  She listened to the sisters’ chanting, felt her insides trembling as if the earth were shaking. Tom had tried to talk her out of a religious life ever since she’d felt the calling—right here on the grounds of Star of the Sea. Her family was so proud of her. And so were the Kellys. She was the first member of her generation—of both families—to have a nun’s vocation.

  Night after night she had walked the grounds, praying for answers. She loved Tom; she always had. She longed to be with him, to marry him and have his children. But at the same time, she felt another possibility tugging her in a different direction—she loved God with all her heart, and she kept dreaming that there was so much to be done—ways of helping the world that she could do only if she gave herself over to him fully: if she was a nun.

  She resisted the dreams; she prayed to have them stop. If she didn’t dream of being a nun, she could ignore the thoughts that were starting to enter her daytime hours. She could resist the desire she’d been feeling to enter the order right here at Star of the Sea—the place where she and Tom had met, where they had spent so many happy hours.

  But the dreams didn’t stop. She kept hearing a voice, telling her that she was needed—that she had to pray, to begin a life of prayer and contemplation, of devotion to the Lord, and to Mary. She felt herself being ripped apart, her heart pulled in two wildly different directions—between a life spent loving Tom and the life of being part of the order.

  And then one day, Bernie had come here, to the Blue Grotto. She had come to pray, to tell God that she had chosen Tom. Her dreams had changed. Instead of nights filled with images of the convent and cloister, she’d started having dreams of a family—her, Tom, and a little boy. And that day, on her knees, Bernie had had a vision, right here at the Blue Grotto.

  The Virgin Mary had appeared to her. Bernie had been kneeling on the stone inside, praying at the altar, asking for guidance. She remembered how hot the day had been; there wasn’t any air moving anywhere on the property, not even near the beach. But suddenly a strong breeze filled the grotto, bringing with it the scent of roses. Bernie had felt almost dizzy with their sweetness, and suddenly she’d felt a cool hand on her forehead.

  It was Mary, wiping her brow with a white linen cloth. Her mouth had moved, but Bernie had heard no words. The breeze was too strong—almost like a hurricane or a sirocco. Bernie had reached for her hand, but Mary disappeared.

  Kneeling there, Bernie had wept. She had cried out loud, begging for Mary to come back. She had so many questions. She loved Tom so much—how could she be called away from him?

  Devout young woman that she was, Bernie couldn’t ignore the vision. She couldn’t just put it aside, pretend it hadn’t happened. She took it as a sign that she was meant to dedicate her life to Mary, to God. But when she’d told Tom the next day, he grabbed her hands, frantic, wild.

  “Maybe it was a sign about love,” he said. “Come to Ireland with me, Bernie. We’ll do what we always dreamed—see where our families came from, where we come from. Maybe you’ll get another sign over there. Give me this time with you, with who we are.”

  The sisters themselves had told Bernie it was better not to rush, that she should be sure of her vocation before she took her vows. When she gazed around the convent and Academy grounds, knowing that so much of this place would always remind her of Ireland—the land of the Kellys and Sullivans—she knew that if she didn’t travel there with Tom, she would be haunted forever.

  She’d agreed to go. And they’d flown to Shannon.

  Never had she seen such brilliant green, spreading everywhere, grass, hillsides, fields, hedges. Bright, vivid, emerald green, traced and divided by silvery stone walls. She saw her family’s heritage everywhere—even from the plane—and from the instant her feet touched the ground, she felt she was home.

  She loved the way people talked—their soft, melodic voices, the way they had of telling stories, the music in the pubs, romantic ruins everywhere, Celtic crosses in the graveyards. She was overwhelmed with love. Seeing this country with Tom, knowing how it all echoed back to their home in Connecticut, at Star of the Sea, where their families had come together again to build something timeless, filled her with passion and emotion.

  She and Tom drove to Dublin and conceived their baby the first week they were there.

  “Tom is right,” Bernie said softly now, to the young man sitting between them. “We did have a child. But he was born in Ireland, not America.”

  “The two of you? Together?” Brendan asked, shocked.

  Bernie nodded. She couldn’t quite look at Tom. She remembered finding out she was pregnant, how rocked they’d been, how worried for her Tom was. But underneath his concern, she’d seen his joy. Even as he’d helped her make arrangements to stay in Ireland until she had the baby—because she’d said no one could know, she’d die of shame if anyone found out—he’d never stopped hoping she’d change her mind about giving the baby up for adoption.

  “But what if I was really born there, and sent over here, right away, to the hospital in New London…”

  “What is your birthday?” Bernie asked.

  “September 17, 1984,” he said.

  “Our boy was born on January 4, 1983,” Tom said. Bernie heard hopelessness in his voice. She remembered that winter day in Phibsboro, Dublin 7, a flat in a row of brick houses. The slate gray sky, stray flurries falling as they walked outside, Tom’s arms around her. They’d walked in silence, except for Bernie’s crying. Tom had at last stopped begging her to change her mind. That in itself had made her weep.

  For Brendan’s sake, she turned her thoughts back to the present. “You said that your birth mother attended Star of the Sea?”

  “Yes,” he said, sounding bereft, almost hollow. “She did.”

  “Until twenty years ago,” Bernie said, “there was a wing of the school devoted to unwed mothers. Now we’re a little more progressive, and we don’t keep them separate. But perhaps your mother came here during her pregnancy; she would have been very welcome.”

  “What about the name Kelly?” Brendan asked. He turned to Tom. “Were any of your relatives…?”

  “Not that I know of,” he said. “But you know the name Kelly is a little like Smith. It’s not uncommon. We can certainly check, though. And we will check. We’ll help you, Brendan, won’t we, Bernie?”

  “We will,” she said. “We’ll help you look into it, any way we can.”

  “I saw the painting you did of the sea monster, on your car,” Tom said, putting his arm around Brendan’s shoulders. “That’s how I knew there was a Kelly connection.” He showed Brendan his crest ring; the boy stared at it for a long time.

  “I got it all wrong,” Brendan said quietly.

>   “No,” Bernie said, tapping his heart. “You’ve got it all right. You’re searching…that’s what matters. You’ve brought such light to our family this summer. Agnes has come out of herself because of you.”

  “I guess that’s one good thing about not being related to you,” Brendan said, glancing up. “It means I’m not related to Agnes either…I hadn’t even thought of that, because I only knew about being a Kelly.”

  “I wanted this to turn out different, for my own sake,” Tom said. “And Bernie’s. You’re a great young man; we’d be proud if you were ours.”

  “And I’d be proud if you were mine,” Brendan said, standing up. He went to shake Tom’s hand, but Tom pulled him close, hugging him.

  Looking up at them, Bernie imagined him hugging their son, and she had to close her eyes. Brendan leaned down, kissed her cheek. She smiled, stood up.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You have opened my world, Brendan. In a way I never really expected…”

  “Well, I hope you find your son someday,” Brendan said. “He’d be a lucky guy.”

  He started to walk away—and Bernie noticed that it wasn’t toward the parking lot, where his car had been all this time, but toward the right, the path that led to Agnes’s house. “Just a minute,” Tom called out.

  “What is it?” Brendan asked.

  “Tell us one thing,” Tom said, lowering his voice so no one else could hear.

  “Sure,” Brendan said. “Anything.”

  “Did you carve those words into the grotto walls?” Tom asked.

  Brendan hesitated, his eyes sparkling. “I almost wish I could take credit for them,” he said. “They’re beautiful. I love their mystery, and what they say, and even more, what they don’t say. Kind of what I’m trying to get at with the pictures on my car, and kind of what I want to become a psychiatrist for. But no. No, I didn’t do them…You’ll have to keep looking.”

  He turned and kept walking, and then he started running—straight over the rise to Agnes. Bernie’s heart cracked to see him go. She hadn’t realized how much she yearned to know her son, the boy she’d had known for such a short time that cold January twenty-three years ago.