by Carol Coffey
“She’s been waiting for you. She said you’d be coming today,” he said, still shaking his head in amazement at the things his mother seemed to know.
“How is she?” Brendan asked.
“It’s nearly time. That’s what they said,” he replied quietly.
Brendan exhaled loudly and went into the room to take a seat beside the sleeping woman. In the few days since he had last seen her, she had wasted away and looked gaunt and thin, nothing like the vibrant, vivacious Alice he had known. Theo woke his son and took him outside leaving Brendan alone with Alice.
The air inside the room was acrid and stifling. Brendan yawned and stared at his friend’s frail face.
“Am I keeping you up?” she whispered.
Brendan laughed as Alice slowly opened her dark brown eyes.
“I dreamt about you, Brendan,” she gasped. “My husband, my Theo, he’s been here all day, marching from wall to wall in his uniform, staring at me and telling me he’s been waiting. I told him, I got to wait for Brendan. ‘Brendan?’ he said, thinking I’ve got myself a fancy man. Yes, I told him and hmm-mm he sure is good-looking, looks a lot like that Irish movie star, what’s his name?”
Brendan smiled and shrugged.
“Well, you should have seen my husband getting all irate at the thought of me looking at another man. I told him, you relax there because I’m old enough to be this boy’s mama and he laughed then and said, ‘I’ll be here, Alice, you just tell me when you’re ready.’”
Alice quietened and fixed a smile on her face as her eyes slowly closed.
“Alice?” Brendan yelped, his heart quickening.
“I’m here. I’m just resting my eyes,” she replied sleepily.
“Alice, I have something to tell you. We did it, Alice. We brought Jonathan home. I found his sister and he is there now. Eileen stayed with him.”
A solitary tear fell down Alice’s cheek and landed on the fold of her neck.
“I knew you would,” she drawled as she opened her eyes. “Are they good people?”
“The best.”
“First time I laid eyes on your special soul, I said that. I said that to myself. I said ‘Alice, this boy is here for a reason’.”
Brendan reached into the cot and held her hand.
“Now, you don’t get fresh because, look, there’s my Theo at the wall again, looking at this white boy holding his wife’s hand.”
Brendan glanced nervously at the wall but could see nobody.
He flinched as her breathing became raspy and turned to see if her son was outside. He waved and the sad-looking man came back into the room.
“Alice, I’ve got to go now. Will you remember that Jonathan is home? Will you remember that we found his sister?”
“I surely will,” she replied.“Brendan?”
“Yes, Alice?”
“Do you know what day today is?”
Brendan shook his head.“No.”
“Why, it’s my retirement day.”
Alice coughed and signalled for Theo to hand her a small envelope from the drawer of her locker.
“I got something for you,” she said.
She took the envelope from her son’s hand and passed it to Brendan. He opened it and scanned down his record of community service with her signature on the end.
“See, we’re both free now, Brendan. I’m finished and so are you. I know where I’m going but what are you going to do now, boy?”
Brendan shrugged. “I don’t know, Alice, but I know that I don’t need to be in the noise anymore. I think I might go to Pennsylvania to be near my sister and Jonathan. The important thing is, I don’t feel like I have to hide anymore. I know who I am now.”
“That’s a good enough answer,” she said as she closed her eyes wearily.
Brendan leant forward and kissed his friend for the last time.
“Thanks for everything, Alice. I’ll never forget you,” he said as a smile washed slowly over her face. “Never.”
Chapter 34
As the sun set gently over Dover town, Brendan slipped quietly down the side entrance of his uncle’s house, hoping for a quiet hour in his apartment before he told his uncle that Eileen was not coming back. He ducked his head down as he passed under Coleen’s kitchen window and moved to the edge of the house, hoping that he had not been seen.
A familiar figure stood statue-like in the garden in the very spot where he had so often stood, admiring the panoramic views over the picturesque town.
Patricia turned and looked at him, then returned her gaze to the beautiful sunset on the west side of his uncle’s garden.
“I saw Eileen leave with you. She’s not coming back, is she?” she asked.
Brendan shook his head.
“Good for her,” his mother said. She gestured towards the view before her. “I used to love this view. When we moved here first, I thought it was the prettiest thing I ever saw.”
Brendan walked across the large garden to where his mother stood and stopped just behind her, looking out at the stunning view.
“I’ve found a place to live,” she said. “A couple of blocks on the other side of town. It’s a small apartment but it’s enough for one person. I hate gardening anyway. I never was much use at growing things.”
She turned to face him and he nodded.
“You want to know why I treated you the way I did? Why I was not what a mother should have been?”
Brendan nodded as his chin quivered slightly. He looked away from his mother and focused his eyes on the town as it disappeared slowly under the darkening sky.
“Every time I looked at you, I saw Rafael. I realised that you would be a reminder of my stupidity every day for the rest of my life.”
“That didn’t give you the right to treat me the way you did,” he said. “It’s no excuse. I was just a child, an innocent child.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“That’s why you didn’t speak to me? All those years of silent treatment, because I looked like my father?”
“No. It was because I didn’t think I had anything to offer you. I . . . I hated myself.”
“And therefore hated me?”
“I didn’t hate you,” she replied quietly.“I felt sorry for you, having a mother like me, but there was nothing I could do to change that. There was no one else to take care of you and I didn’t want to leave you with Frank. The very mention of Rafael’s name sent him crazy. What kind of a father would he have made you who were the living image of the man he hated? I know I can’t undo what I’ve done but I am really sorry. I’m hoping that we can at least . . . try to be friends.”
Patricia put out her small hand towards him and waited.
He searched her face and slowly raised his hand, taking her fragile hand in his.
“Yes,” he answered. “We can try.”
Chapter 35
The small orchard at the side of the shelter looked different to Brendan as he harvested the last of Jonathan’s apples amid the falling leaves in the early November sunshine. It had been a task that Brendan had put off many times since his friend had returned to his home in Pennsylvania as though the pulling of the apples would signify the end of the adventure they had enjoyed and would tell Brendan that it was also time for him to leave, to uproot himself from this town and the people that he had begun to love. When he pulled the last apple from the tree, he walked alone along the boundary of the property and remembered how Jonathan had watched him in the late spring sunshinefrom behind those very trees, now laid bare in the autumn fall.
He walked into the house and wandered around the large front room and into the laundry where his sister had undertaken her labour of love for all those years. He climbed the ornate staircase and remembered how his friend had inched by him in fear as he repaired the beautiful balusters on the antique stairwell and how together they had laboured to repair the furniture in the large dorms where Zeb still fought each night with the other men for his favourite bed under the
window.
He climbed the last few steps to Jonathan’s tower and stood for a moment, unable to bring himself to open the door to the now empty room. He missed his needy, confused friend more than he realised, the new Jonathan growing in confidence each time Brendan drove to the clapboard house and watched the man clear out the overgrown orchards on his father’s farm.Jonathan had even filed charges against Dr Reiter, not for monetary gain but to expose the well-known psychiatrist as the evil man he truly was and to bring him to justice.
Brendan walked to his mother’s new car where he had stacked as many boxes of Jonathan’s harvest as he could fit in the boot.
“There,” he said as struggled to fit the last box in. “You’d think he hadenough apples of his own where he is,” he said to Henrietta who stood in the garden, watching him.
Brendan glanced at the heavy-set woman who had cooked at the shelter for more years than she cared to remember. The last time he had seen her was at Alice’s funeral. His friend had died only hours after he’d told her that Jonathan had made it home. Contrary to what he had expected, the funeral had not been a sad affair. He had actually enjoyed the celebration of his friend’s life, which was held in a packed-out Baptist church in Dover. True to how the woman had lived her life, people from all sections of the community had crowded in to say goodbye. When Brendan arrived he had noticed Zeb standing at the very back of the church. He invited him to come and sit with the Dalton family but Zeb had refused, telling him that he was never a churchgoing man but that he had come here to say goodbye to Alice. His casts were now gone and the old man’s arms hung limply by his sides as he stood alone in the background. Mr Thompson and all the board members had also crowded into the tiny church and Brendan noticed how the usually sour man was brought to tears as he watched Alice’s grandchildren bring symbols of all she held dear onto the altar, one of which was a large poster of Mr Thompson’s uncle who had been a great support to Alice in her futile search for her husband all those years ago – she had never forgotten the kindness he had shown her. Pilar was there with Guido and Isabel, as was Frank and all of the Dalton family.
Jonathan and Eileen had also arrived and had announced their engagement over dinner the previous evening, Jonathan having asked Frank for his daughter’s hand two days before. “It’s a bit late to be asking now,” Frank had responded, still seething from his daughter stealing away in the dead of night without as much as a goodbye.
Brendan was glad that he’d had a chance to speak to his uncle alone before he left the house that morning. He had found him in the front garden, pretending to plant spring bulbs.
“Thanks for everything,” he had said as he stretched out his hand to Frank.
“Thanks?” Frank had asked.“You’re my nephew, no need to thank me for putting you up.”
Brendan flushed.“No, thank you for . . . bringing me here and for . . . for making a . . . man of me.”
Frank’s mouth had dropped open.“My tough love worked on someone?” he had asked, joking.
“It did.”
“Will you put that in writing?” his uncle quipped to hide his embarrassment.
Brendan laughed and shook his uncle’s hand as the two men stared into each other’s faces. Then he instinctively pulled the old man to him and hugged him tightly.
“Hey!” Frank had said.“You’ll only be just over an hour away. Anyway, I’ll need someone to keep an eye on Eileen for me. I’m not completely sure about that chap she’s going out with yet. Will you do that?”
Brendan nodded.“I will.”
“Brendan?” his uncle asked as he glanced towards the car where Patricia, who had agreed to drive Brendan, sat waiting.“And I’ll look after your mother here. I don’t know why she had to move into that apartment but . . . she seems happy and that’s all I ever wanted.”
Brendan could hear his mother start to cry in the driver’s seat. He felt he finally understood his old uncle who had been forced into manhood at an early age and had tried, albeit erroneously, to protect his family from all of the evil in the world.
Frank waved tearfully to her as she buried her head in her hands.
“We’ll see you at Thanksgiving in Wilsonville!” Brendanhad shouted as they drove away.
Now, as he slammed the boot of the car shut in the driveway of the shelter, he saw Pilar in the window of Jonathan’s room, watching him. True to her word, they’d had dinner the night before at a Puerto Rican restaurant and they hadspent a lot of time together since Jonathan’s departure. He had even accompanied her to Wilsonville anytime she was due to check on how their friend was doing. He waved to her and smiled when she raised her petite hand and waved back to him.
“You sure you don’t want to stay here?” his mother asked from the driver’s seat.
Brendan took one last look at the beautiful woman in the window and shook his head.
“I’m sure,” he said hesitantly.
He looked up and gave Pilar one last wave as the car made its way onto Maple Street.
Epilogue
Kuvic’s court case was swift with Eileen only having to appear once to give evidence about the terrible night he attacked her at the shelter. Mr Thompson was there to listen as a guilty verdict was read out by the jury of men and women in Dover district court. Brendan could feel Alice in the room with them and could almost hear her raucous laugh as Kuvic was led away to serve an eighteen-month prison sentence. Even in death, his friend was getting her way. Kuvic’s career working with the helpless and disempowered wasfinally over.
Jan Reiter did not receive a prison sentence but his licence to practise medicine was revoked, which nobody believed would be any real hardship for the aging psychiatrist who had only been working part-time at the hospital so he could oversee Jonathan’s long-term community care and ensure that the strange man never found his way home. More painful to Reiter was the court’s decision that half of the money his son had inherited be awarded to Jonathan and that an advocate be assigned to Reiter’s son to ensure the money was finally used to provide the severely disabled man with the best care money could buy.
Jonathan in turn donated a large proportion of his inheritance to the shelter, which enabled Pilar to provide the extra services she had long since envisaged for her clients.
The now married man had also gone to great lengths to find the unmarked plots where Melibea and her mother had been buried and found that the mother and daughter had been laid to rest not far from each other in Harlem’s Trinity Cemetery. Brendan accompanied Jonathan to watch as two new headstones, engraved with the women’s real names, were placed at the head of their final resting places.
Brendan settled into life in the Appalachian Mountains better than he had anticipated, the quiet of the woodlands seeping into his soul as though he had always belonged there. By day, he taught literature to small groups of animated adolescents, hungry for the stories he had read so passionately as a lonely child in Ireland, and by evening he would spend time with his friend, clearing more sections of the vast orchard or climbing to the clearing that Jonathan had described to him so beautifully from a hilltop in Dover. That day now felt like it had occurred a long, long time ago. In finding his friend’s lost home, he had also discovered a place where he could belong, a place where he now lived in peace.
When Jonathan and Eileen had their first child, a bridge was created which Patriciacould use to heal the wounds of the past. Some eveningsEileen would organise a get-together. Frank and Coleen would visit with Patricia as would Cassie and Nella. Pilar would arrive and Brendan’s heart would soar at the very sight of her. On each visit, he noticed she would stay on longer. He knew she was beginning to love the peaceful place and that the draw of Dover was slowly slipping from her. Together they would all sit at the large oak table and talk about their day. On those beautiful evenings Brendan would watch his friend’s eyes moisten as he enjoyed the very thing he had missed most during his time in captivity. Then he would walk with Pilar into the dense woodlands and li
sten to the wind blowing through the majestic trees.
And on the nights when she was not there, he would sit in his room in the big clapboard house set high among the mountains and imagine Pilarstanding in the round window, waving to him as she had done the day he left Dover. He would think about her then, her hair tied up tightly as she roamed around that big old house, checking on her charges and locking the house down for the night. And sometimes he would succeed in shaking that lonely image from his mind. He’d stand andlook out of his window into the darkness of the wilderness around him where he’d see her standing barefoot on the long dirt driveway, as he knew she someday would, her hair loose around her, waiting for him to come take her from the darknessand into the light of the shaded room.
If you enjoyed
The Incredible Life of Jonathan Doe
by Carol Coffey
why not try Winter Flowers also published by Poolbeg?
Here’s a sneak preview of the first three chapters.
Chapter 1 Winter Flowers
“Iris Fay, are you in there?” The man’s voice boomed from outside the rundown shop as he knocked heavily on the door.
Iris switched on her bedside lamp, leapt from her small bed and threw an old dressing-gown around her thin body. She had not been asleep. She glanced at the clock. It was one o’clock. She rarely slept before three, spending the darkest hours lying there, thinking. She pulled the belt tight and tied it, staring at her thin pale face in the dusty bedroom mirror. In the dim light she looked older than her forty years. She raced to the door.
