Wild Geese

by Caroline Pignat

  The outburst catches us both by surprise and I apologize for it.

  “Mother,” I continue, “I’ve lived through famine. I’ve sailed for forty days and nights. Swallowed by a whale or a ship’s hull, isn’t it one and the same? Aren’t I exiled from my promised land?” My voice catches and I stop to breathe. “I’m living the life of Job, Mother. One tragedy after another.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes.

  “Do you believe in God, Kathleen?” she finally asks. Her question catches me by surprise. No one ever asked me that before. In all the years of people telling me what to believe, no one ever asked me if I did. I’d never dared to ask it of myself.

  Do I?

  I hold the question, consider its weight, before tossing it like a wishing coin and watching it sink in the deepest, darkest part of me.

  Do I?

  ...do I?

  Yes.

  The answer surprises me as it surfaces and ripples through me. But I know it to be true.

  “I believe … but I do not understand. Why did all this have to happen? Where was God in all this?”

  She reaches for my hand. “Kit, great faith lives beside great doubt. If we had all the answers, we would not need faith. Look at me. Two and a half years ago, I was sent to a town known for its wildness and riots. Do you think it was easy? Do you think I wasn’t scared? But I trusted God, and look at all he has done here.”

  She’s right. I can only imagine where all those immigrants would be if she hadn’t been here to help them. To help Annie. To help me.

  “But you are Mother Bruyere,” I say. “I’m an orphan; I have nothing. I am nothing.”

  “In here,” she points to her chest, “I am Élisabeth. I, too, am an orphan. I grew up in poverty. I saw my father die. I have fears and doubts. I miss my home and my family in Montreal.” Her eyes well. “I still struggle with that. I feel what you feel, Kathleen.”

  I didn’t realize. She always seems so sure. “But you have your work and your sisters. You have hope,” I add.

  She nods and squeezes my hand. “You had hope, too. But you put it in the wrong things. In people and places. In money. In all you could achieve by will or work. Those things will always let you down. You know that to be true, now. Try putting your hope in God. God alone.”

  She knows. Someone truly knows how I feel, how it has been for me. It doesn’t change anything, yet somehow everything is different, as though someone lit a small sputtering candle in my darkness.

  I wipe my nose with the back of my hand and rest my head on the side of her bed. “I used to be a daughter and a sister. For a while, I was even a boy. But I am none of those now. I’m lost, Mother. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

  “I do, chère.” She rests her hand on my head. “You are Kathleen Byrne.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  “I figured you’d be here,” Martha says, joining me at the top of the bluff where I sit and stare out at the black river.

  “Sister Phelan will have a conniption if she sees you sitting in that,” I mumble, as she settles beside me in her new brown robe and sets the basket beside her. She’d traded her purple dress for the nun’s habit after taking her novice promises a few days ago.

  “I’m still not used to you looking like that,” I add. She looks like a nun, save for the silver cross and ring she’ll get when she takes her final vows after her training in Montreal. But I have to admit, she’s glowing like a new bride.

  “The coach for Montreal leaves in a few hours.” She offers me an apple but I shake my head. “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

  I pick up a curled, brown leaf and twiddle it in my fingers. “So you’re leaving me, too.”

  But she doesn’t answer.

  “I love the start of fall,” she says, cracking into her apple, slurping its juice. “The apples. The geese getting ready to fly. The blushing maples.” She breathes deeply, drawing it all inside of her.

  I see only loss and leaving. A cold, dark winter ahead. All of it mourned with waning honks. The leaf crumbles, leaving dust in my hands.

  “So, I suppose I’m a goose now myself,” she says, patting her black bonnet and smiling at my surprised expression. “Oh, I know all about Rose’s nicknames. So does Sister Phelan. But what better animal could we be, really?”

  She waits, making me ask, even though I don’t feel like talking.

  “What do you mean?” I finally say; she has me curious now.

  She points at another wide arrow of birds approaching from the north. “See how they fly together like that, in a v?”

  I’d wondered about that.

  “My father told me that the wind from each one’s flapping wings uplifts the goose behind. By working together, they raise each other up.” She squints up at them as they soar over our heads. “And when the leader is tired, another takes a turn.”

  Just as she says it, the arrow shifts and a new goose takes the lead. The geese fly on, loose and yet linked together, like a string of black beads shrinking into the horizon.

  “How is Mother Bruyere?” I ask, afraid of the answer. “Is it typhus?”

  Martha shakes her head. “Meningitis. She’s in great pain. Doctor Van Cortlandt is with her now.” Her answer has no reassurance for either of us. She takes the basket beside her and hands it to me. I’d know that worn handle anywhere; it’s Mother Bruyere’s. The basket’s emptiness makes it feel heavier than ever.

  “You are to take over her route while she is ill,” Martha says, standing and brushing off her skirts. “She specifically asked for you.”

  “I can’t do it.” All those families? Is she mad? “I’m not Mother Bruyere. Can’t you ask someone else?”

  “There is no one else,” Martha answers. More and more sisters are in the grip of typhus. More and more volunteers are abandoning the work in fear. Yet, none of it smothers the hopefulness in Martha’s voice. “... but there is you.”

  “Me?” I scoff. “You can’t ask me to do what she did.”

  Martha smiles and hugs me goodbye. She smells like apple. “Do what Kit can do,” she says gently as she lets me go. “That’s all God asks.”

  Though I can’t collect anywhere near what Mother Bruyere would, it seems the families are glad of whatever I bring that week. Their faces light up when they see me and they’re so thankful for the bit of bread or fish I give them, the new blanket, or the hot cup of tea. Such little things, really, and yet, they mean so much.

  With so many families to visit, on my first round I don’t want to stop and chat. I’ve enough to do without having to listen to all that. But it doesn’t take me long to realize there’s no stopping an Irishman with a tale to tell. Truth be told, there’s no rushing them neither. So I stand there, hand on the door, shifting foot to foot while Widow Moore goes on and on about her bad hip, or while Meg tells me about her baby’s dry nappies, or while Frankie Brady natters on about the “big one that got away” that afternoon as he fished in the river with a branch and a bit of twine.

  Funnily enough, listening makes my work easier. For every story makes me a better beggar. I’ll rap that Upper Town brass doorknocker and ask for milk for Meg’s baby who needs a sup, or a blanket for Widow Moore whose old joints ache in the damp nights, or some fish for Frankie Brady to replace the one that got away. I’ll do it and do it boldly, for I know if I don’t, they’ll go without. For the most part, Bytowners are generous. When they hear the stories of need, when I ask for something specific, almost always they offer it.

  All this time, I thought they didn’t care, but maybe, just maybe, they didn’t understand.

  Each day that week, I end my visits at the Bradys’ home so I can help Theresa. As always, Frankie sits on the boarding house steps waiting for me and runs to carry my basket the last bit of the way. By then, my arms are like two lead logs swinging from my shoulders. He’s sporting a black eye today, but only shrugs when I ask where he got it. Fortunately, Agnes’s fever has broken. I wash her face and arm
s, comb her hair, and change her clothing, like I’ve seen Mother Bruyere do. Taking off her dirty shift, I toss it with my laundry pile and then slip a fresh one gently over her head. She takes a drink and a small bit of bread, a bite more than yesterday.

  “Rest,” I tell her. “The worst of it’s over now.”

  She smiles weakly as I lay her back down. Cups in hand, the children gather round me as their mother sleeps.

  “Can I tell my one about the Wild Geese?” Frankie asks.

  Theresa scolds him for bringing it up. She remembers how it upset me last time.

  I sigh; he’s relentless, that one. Just like Jack. “Go on, then.”

  “’Twas many years ago,” he starts, lisping his gap-toothed way through the well-told tale. “When thousands of Irish left.” He hesitates. “Because they couldn’t get treats from Limerick.”

  “You mean because of the Treaty of Limerick,” I say.

  “Right,” Frankie nods. “And so they all climbed into a boat.”

  “All twenty-four thousand of them?” I ask.

  “Uh-huh. The boats were much bigger then,” he explains.

  Theresa tsks at his foolishness.

  “... and they sailed,” Frankie scrunches up his face, “they sailed for forty days and nights aboard the Perseverence until they reached a land of milk and honey.” He holds up his bowl. “And stew.”

  “Perseverence?” Theresa interrupts. “Don’t be silly, Frankie. That’s the ship we came on.”

  “’Tis my story, Theresa,” he snaps. “This is the way it goes. And the Wild Geese landed in the foreign land. They had many great epic battles for survival. Especially the one against Timmy Duncan.”

  “Timmy Duncan?” Theresa blurts. “Timmy Duncan from down the lane? You’re making that up,” she scoffs and turns to me. “Is that how it goes, Kit?”

  I glance at Frankie and shake my head. “Sorry, Frankie. I don’t recall the part about Timmy Duncan.”

  “See?” Theresa says. “That’s not the real story at all.”

  Frankie bolts to his feet, spilling what little stew he had. His hands are clenched by his side and his watery eyes glare at the pair of us. “It is a real story, Theresa. It is! It’s my story. I fought Timmy Duncan this very day down by the canal. He tried to take my firewood. But I wouldn’t let him, so he threw me on the ground and gave me this.” He points at his shiner. “We fought for five whole minutes, Theresa. And I won! I WON! I got the firewood to heat Mam’s stew so she can get better.” His tiny body shakes with emotion.

  He knows neither the Irish Jacobites of the 1690s, nor the soldiers from the wars fought many years after. Frankie Brady knows only the battles he fights every day in this new land a long, long way from home. Battles for firewood and food. Battles for survival. His Wild Geese story.

  “Five whole minutes?” I say, taking his tiny fist in my hand. “Why, Frankie Brady, that surely is an epic battle if ever I heard one.”

  His hand opens in mine and I pull him into my lap. I can feel his tiny heart throbbing in his bony chest. He takes a few deep breaths and lets the tension go out of him, like a rope gone slack.

  “Will you tell me yours, Kit?” Frankie says, staring into the embers glowing in the tiny fire pit. “Will you tell me your Wild Geese story?”

  And tell it I do.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  After a few weeks and many prayers, Mother Bruyere recovers. The sisters say ’tis a miracle. Even Dr. Van Cortlandt seems surprised by her healing. Of the fifteen sisters that caught typhus, not one of them died, which is a miracle in itself, given the number of Bytowners it claimed.

  When Mother Bruyere returns to her rounds, I offer to carry her baskets. She smiles and thanks me, though, in all honesty, I should be thanking her. I want to see the face of Mr. Doolen when I give him back his patched shirt, or Sarah Meehan’s when I hand her a few shiny apples. I need to see them. Besides, Widow Moore is teaching me how to crochet a blanket for Meg’s baby, and Frankie has only heard a tenth of my stories yet. God only knows how many of his he’s yet to tell.

  Mother Bruyere is amazed at how much I’ve thrown myself into the duties she’d left me. She well knows how little I wanted them, and even more so, how badly I needed them. So, week after week, Mother Bruyere and I beg for donations from market stalls, butchers, and bakers. Even Mr. Desjardins generously hands me three loaves, though I doubt he recognizes me. Still, it feels redeeming to hear him wish me well and praise the work. Daily we cross Sappers Bridge and ask the citizens to share what they have, building little bridges between poor and rich, Irish and French, Protestant and Catholic, one loaf of bread, one pot of soup at a time.

  Mother Bruyere and I pass Sparrow’s General Store on our way home one evening. ’Tis bitter cold and near dark as we cross the street, carefully navigating the ruts of frozen mud. Shorter days just mean we have to work faster, for there isn’t less need in winter. If anything, there’s more. I’ve been knitting well into the night at Saint Raphael’s but, even then, I can’t work fast enough to meet the demands. Ready or not, winter is coming.

  “I wonder if Mr. Sparrow would donate a few sets of needles and balls of wool,” I say, as the idea drifts into my mind like a snowflake from the darkness. “I could teach the children how to knit. Why, we could knit enough socks for every bare foot in Bytown!”

  Mother Bruyere smiles. “You make your mother proud.”

  Her words pause in the cold air for a second before disappearing into the night. I don’t know if she meant Mam, or Our Lady, or even herself, but a blacksmith’s bellows could not have fired up the warmth those few words gave me.

  Rose tells me about Canadian winters, but surely she’s exaggerating. They can’t be as long, or deep, or brutal as she says. Can they? I’d seen snow before; hadn’t we had some in Ireland from time to time? A light sprinkling, like God had sifted a bit of flour over the land. When the winter starts, truly starts, and the heavens open upon us, I realize Canadian snow is a dumping, not a dusting. Rose isn’t joking. Some days it falls for hours, blanketing the world in great downy flakes. Other days it shoots across the frozen river, pricking our cheeks with its ice needles. But whatever the weather, we bundle up and do our rounds. Our friends are waiting.

  As the winter wears on, I teach the children we visit and the girls in the orphanage how to knit. Mr. Sparrow and the Ladies of Charity donate the wool; some are the colors no one would buy, and others are leftover bits from their knitting, but the girls are glad to have it. Their cold little fingers work the sloppy stitches, in-around-through, in-around-through, just as I’ve taught them. ’Tis slow going, to be sure. Painfully slow and, truth be told, with all their dropped stitches, there’s more hole than sock. After a few weeks, most have only a multi-colored mess to show for all their efforts. Even Theresa Brady, my prize student, has only finished the one sock. Frankie wears it on his right foot, proudly shows it to us when we get there. But I feel discouraged. At this rate, winter will be over before they finish their knitting, and what good is that?

  Mother Bruyere reminds me that one sock is warmer than none and that I’ve given them something more than a bit of clothing. I’ve given them a purpose and taught them the skill to do it. By next winter, she says, the children will have finished two pairs each. I wish I had her patience and her vision.

  For, try as I might, all I can think about is Frankie’s cold left foot.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Rose asks one night by the fire at Saint Raphael’s. All the other girls are long asleep.

  I hold up the knitting needles. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not that,” she scoffs, “with them. The sisters. You waste all your time with them.”

  ’Tis true. My days revolve around the sisters’ schedules—getting food; delivering it to the sick and poor; I even follow their prayer times. At first, my prayers are dry and empty. But when I think of the families, of all they need, the words spill out of
me. I pray for Theresa and Frankie, for Agnes, for Widow Moore, for the sisters; I light candles for Jack and Annie, for Lizzie, for Mick. Even for Rose.

  “And didn’t I see you go in the confessional last week?” she says, like she’s asking if it was me she saw jumping off Sappers Bridge.

  I stop knitting and look at her. I hadn’t realized she’d seen me that day. To be honest, I hadn’t planned on going. One minute I was polishing the kneeler by the confessional, the scratched one Mr. Fitzgibbon refinished, and the next thing I knew I was on my knees in the confessional, baring every shameful secret I’d ever carried.

  I’d that dusting rag twisted in knots in my sweaty hands as I told Father Molloy how I’d tried to poison Lynch, how I’d let Tom die unforgiven, how I’d stolen Miller’s livelihood. It all rushed out of me, my sins of murder, envy, hatred, theft, deceit, doubt, anger, and greed. It sickened me to bring them up and spew them out—but I had to. I just had to. For I could carry them no longer.

  “Yes,” I admit to Rose, as though confessing my sins were more shameful than committing them. “In truth, I half expected Father Molloy to whip open the door, drag me by the scruff of my neck, and toss me down the cathedral steps.”

  Her eyes widen as if seeing me for the first time. She leans forward. “B’Jaysus, Kit, I’d like to hear what you told him.”

  “I can’t tell you that,” says I, going back to my knitting. “But I can tell you what he said. Three little words I’ll never forget.” I pause and look at her hanging on to my every word. “You. Are. Forgiven.”

  She catches herself sitting on the edge of her chair and rolls her eyes as she flops back. “As if.” She folds her arms and frowns at the fire. I wonder what she’s thinking. “Like I want Father Molloy bellowing fire and brimstone at me,” she mutters. “No thanks. I don’t need his forgiveness.”

  “’Tisn’t his you’re asking for,” I say, avoiding her glare.

  “What do you know, anyway?” she stands and spits the words at me. “Carrying a nun’s basket doesn’t make you holy, Kit. Sure, any old ass could do that. So don’t go getting all high and mighty with me.”