Hannie Rising

by Jeanette Baker

  Liam would want to lie in on the weekends. She would have to limit her vacuuming to regular hours instead of pulling out the Hoover before work in the morning. Her dream of a craft room where the sewing machine could be left out with bolts of fabric strewn about, magazines open to pages she would get back to when she had the time and books stacked by a deep and comfortable, albeit shabby, chair that should have seen the rubbish heap years ago, was disappearing by the second. She could always change her plans and appropriate Kate's old room, but it was upstairs, not nearly as convenient and right next to the guest room. Maybe Liam could sleep in the room that had once belonged to his sister.

  Mentally, Johannah gave herself a shake. This was her son and he needed help. Smiling brightly, she added vinegar and oil to the salad, turned and held out the bowl to Liam. "Well then, you must move back into your old room. I know it will be an adjustment, but we'll manage and it will be lovely for me to have you here."

  His smile of relief and grateful thanks shamed her.

  He set the bowl on the table, leaned against the worktop and crossed his arms. "There's something else, something you should know."

  Johannah's heart sank. "Don't tell me you can't afford your car."

  "Nothing like that," he said quickly. "I'm down to the final payments. The rent is due on my apartment and I don't have it, not if I'm to pay off my credit card. I'll need to move in at the end of the week."

  "That's not so bad, is it?" Johannah asked.

  "I just wanted to be sure you're alright with it."

  She wasn't alright with it, not at all, but there was nothing left to say. "'Clear sailing,' as your dad always said."

  * * *

  Johannah had just finished tucking foil around the lamb chops to keep them warm when Kate breezed in a full thirty minutes late.

  "Sorry," she said, kissing first her mother's cheek and then the top of her brother's head. "You're too gorgeous for your own good, Liam. It's disgusting and I'm jealous." She smiled at her mother. "Dermot forgot about watching Evan tonight and stopped at the pub. I had to ring around to find him because he didn't hear his mobile. I left as soon as I could. Did I miss anything?"

  Liam and Johannah spoke at the same time, their subsequent words mangling the message.

  "Not really."

  "Liam's moving home."

  Kate looked from one to the other. "Sorry?"

  Johannah looked at her son.

  Liam sighed. "I'm going back to university. I can't afford it on my own. Mom's offered to let me move home while I earn my degree."

  Like twin blue windows, Kate's eyes widened. She turned to her mother. "What about your craft room?"

  "I'll manage. I can use your room. Would you like a glass of wine?"

  "No thanks. I'll have a mineral instead." Avoiding everyone's eyes, Kate unwound her scarf, hung her jacket on the hook in the closet and reached for the oven mitt. "Let's eat. I'm starved." She surveyed the lamb chops. "You didn't add too much salt, did you, Mom? You do remember what I told you about salt?"

  Johannah's smile was a bit forced. If only Kate had found a job in her field. Perhaps, if she planned meals during the day, she would be less critical of her family's choices at home. "I remember," was all she said.

  Kate served the lamb chops while Liam poured her orange drink and Johannah dished up the potatoes.

  Dinner was unusually quiet. "It's lovely having you both here, all to myself," Johannah said, when they were nearly finished. "I feel a bit guilty about Evan and Dermot. Did they have something else to do, Kate?"

  Kate shook her head. "I wanted to talk to you alone."

  "Shall I leave?" Liam asked.

  "Don't be an idiot," his sister retorted. "I meant without Dermot." She bit her lip. "I'm going to say it all at once. The thing is, I'm not happy. I want to come home for awhile. I think it would be good for Dermot and me to take a time out." She glanced at her mother's face and amended hastily. "It wouldn't be too long, just a few weeks, really."

  Johannah stared at her daughter. "Precisely, what does 'a time out' mean?"

  Kate flushed. Like her brother, the pink stain lit her face with attractive color. "Dermot and I aren't getting along. It's desperate, really." Her voice rose. "I can't do it anymore. I hate living there." Words crowded her throat. She couldn't adequately describe the boredom, the sameness, the gray, dull routine of her life, the sheer effort it took to drag herself out of bed, the lack of intimacy in her marriage, the overwhelming despair she felt when she thought of the never-changing future. She tried to speak and couldn't. Tears spilled over. Kate dropped her head into her hands and wept.

  Her mother's voice gentled. "What's happened, Kate? Has Dermot done something?"

  Kate wouldn't look up. She shook her head. "No."

  "Then, what is it? Tell us."

  Liam pushed back his chair. "She's not here to talk to me. I'll check the news and give you time alone."

  Johannah waited until he'd left the room. The worst of Kate's breakdown had passed. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and tucked it into her daughter's hand.

  After a minute, Kate wiped her eyes, blew her nose and met her mother's level gaze. "I'm so miserable, Mom. I can't stand it there anymore in that tiny flat, trying to keep things tidy in a space no bigger than a bathtub, cooking and cleaning and minding Evan, and then working at the hardware when I'm not scheduled at the Council Office. There's never a minute for me. I made a terrible mistake. Nothing was supposed to be like this. I have to leave while I'm still young, or this is all I'll ever have. I want to come home."

  Johannah's hand clutched the cloth serviette. She felt the familiar sick heaving of her stomach, her unfortunate and ubiquitous reaction to conflict. "Surely you're not suggesting leaving your husband, the father of your child?"

  "I don't love him."

  "How convenient."

  "That's not fair."

  "Fair?" Johannah concentrated on lowering her voice. "I'm not sure we share the same definition of the word. What about Evan?"

  "Evan comes with me, of course. I'd never leave Evan."

  "I suppose there's no point in reminding you the child has a father who loves him just as much as you do. I can't imagine what Mickey would have done had I announced I was taking the two of you and going to live with my mother."

  Kate refrained from reminding her mother that Dolly wasn't the kind of mother anyone would go home to. "Dad would be the first one to tell me not to throw my life away."

  "Don't be so sure about that." Johannah looked down at her white knuckles straining at the crumpled serviette. "We thought you'd married too soon. Your father tried to make you wait."

  "I know," Kate replied woodenly. "You were right then. You're still right. You're always right and no, there's no point in reminding me."

  Johannah didn't want to say it, but she had to. "Please tell me this isn't because Ritchie O'Shea is coming home."

  Kate's smooth forehead wrinkled in genuine perplexity. "What are you talking about?"

  "You didn't know?"

  "No."

  Sighing, Johannah stood and began clearing the table. She decided against bringing out the banoffee pie. No one would have an appetite after Kate's announcement. "It's true. I met his mother in Dunne's. She's over the moon." A hint of bitterness edged her words. There was no love lost between her and Kitty O'Shea. "Never mind that half the mothers in Tralee will be in mourning over the news and I'll be one of them."

  "I won't pretend to misunderstand you," Kate said evenly, "but you're mistaken. I have no interest in Ritchie O'Shea. It was too long ago to matter and even if it wasn't, he's married."

  "Apparently that's not much of an impediment." Johannah clapped her hand over her mouth. Six months ago she never would have said that. What was the matter with her?

  "It really is, Mom," Kate said seriously. "He chose someone else. I wish it had gone differently, but it didn't. We can't go back, not any of us."

  She sounded resolved and sen
sible, but so terribly bereft. Johannah's eyes misted. Dermot Kelliher never had a chance. Damn Ritchie O'Shea and his saxophone, his dangerous, blue-eyed charm and that voice that had coaxed the clothes off more than a few women who should have known better. He was the spitting image of his father. Johannah was in a position to know although she would never admit it to anyone but Maura, and then only because the two of them were smack in the middle of the O'Shea fan club nearly a lifetime ago.

  Johannah wet the dishtowel with cold water and pressed it against her forehead. Keeping her eyes on the dark line of trees outside her window, she spoke softly allowing nothing of what she felt to reflect itself in her voice. "Of course you must come home. You know I wouldn't turn you away. But don't do something you'll regret, Katie. It's no small thing to dissolve a marriage. You'll never be the same."

  From the back, Kate's arms slipped around her waist. "Thank you," she murmured, her lips warm against Johannah's shoulder, and then repeated the words that never failed to call up her mother's laugh. "I'll be very good."

  Chapter 6

  Johannah

  "Why don't we have time?" Evan's rosy lower lip trembled. "I have my own money." He opened his hand to reveal two twenty pence coins, their imprint clearly stamped into his palm.

  Johannah sighed. "It isn't the money, love. Your daddy's waiting at home. He wants to take you with him. We'll have an ice cream next time."

  Evan stopped in the middle of the park footpath, pulling his hand from Johannah's. "I don't like football. I want ice cream, and then I want to go home with you."

  Johannah gazed helplessly at the small, dark-haired termagant standing mutinously in the way of foot traffic. She couldn't recall her own children ever behaving this way. Had children changed in twenty years or was she simply out of touch? More to the point, had their ever been an instance when either Kate or Liam preferred her company over the chance to watch a football match with Mickey? She doubted it. More likely, they would have flung themselves on the ground in protest if he'd suggested leaving one of them behind. Mickey had always been the exciting one, the jokester, the playmate. Johannah was the dull one, the second choice, the last resort for both her children.

  And yet, they were hers in the beginning, her children, small, sweet-smelling bundles, warm against her chest, fussing when someone different, someone unfamiliar, held them for too long. Perhaps the pulling away had been her fault. Tossing a ball back and forth, endlessly stacking blocks, dressing dolls, fighting make-believe wars, or playing childish card games she found desperately tedious. Mickey was the one for all that. She was good for bandaging skinned knees, helping with schoolwork, reading bedtime stories, bathing, cooking, washing, all the practical, unexciting needs that no one, when all was said and done, appreciated, or even remembered.

  Johannah wasn't a woman who enjoyed children's activities. It shamed her to even think such a thing, but it wasn't until Kate and Liam became reasonably conversational, somewhere around age ten, that she actually enjoyed their company. What a dreadful, unnatural woman she was. Glancing at her grandson's stubborn, composed expression, she resolved to change her ways. The first challenge would be to phone her son-in-law. She was tremendously fond of Dermot, but after Kate's confession, he was the last person she wanted to speak with. Until he knew his wife's intentions, it seemed to Johannah that she was participating in the worst of deceptions. Still, under the circumstances, there was no help for it.

  Kneeling on the sidewalk, her eyes level with her grandson's, she coaxed him gently. "Evan, listen to me. I'll call your daddy on the mobile and ask him if we can be a bit late. If he tells me so, I'll take you for an ice cream. But after that, you must agree to go home without an argument. I have an important appointment and I can't bring you with me. Can you accept that?"

  "Why can't I go with you?"

  "I must go to work. It isn't a place for children."

  Evan appeared to consider the matter. He was quite bright for a four-year old. "All right," he said. "Call him now."

  "If he tells me to bring you home, I must. I will have no choice. Do you understand?"

  "He won't."

  Caught between annoyance and amusement, Johannah suppressed a laugh. "How can you possibly be so sure?"

  "He doesn't really want to take me to football. It's only because my mommy's working that I must go with him."

  Johannah sighed. "Evan, where do you come up with your ideas?" Mustering her courage, she pulled her mobile from her purse and punched in Kate's number.

  Dermot answered immediately, remaining silent for several seconds before replying. "Is that really what you want, Hannie? You've had him all day."

  "I don't mind a bit," she lied. "If you like I can fix him up with the ice cream and drop him by on my way home."

  "That's very good of you. May I speak with him?"

  "Of course." Johannah held out the phone.

  Evan held the mobile to his ear. "Yes," he said. "I'll come straight away. Nan will bring me." He laughed. "I love you, too, Daddy." He handed the phone back to his grandmother. "He wants to talk to you."

  Johannah spoke quickly. "We won't be long, Dermot."

  "I don't want him to be a bother, Hannie. You do quite enough for us as it is, and you work very hard."

  Guilt smote her. "Nonsense," she said briskly, wishing not for the first time, that she could wring her daughter's neck. "Evan's good company. I'll have him back very soon."

  With a foreseeable goal within reach, Evan covered the distance back to the closest vendor serving chocolate-swirled, soft-serve without dawdling. He consumed his treat without any observable soiling of clothing and was handed off to his father with a smile on his face. "Daddy, I have to pee."

  "Go along then."

  "Do you want to keep me company?"

  "If you like."

  "I don't have to hold my willy anymore." the child announced.

  Hurriedly, Johannah kissed her grandson's cheek, relieved that the excursion and the day, as far as babysitting was concerned, was over. There was no sugar-coating it. Evan wore her out. The child was indulged, the result of a permissive father and an exhausted, apparently resentful mother.

  "Would you like a cup of tea, Hannie?" Dermot hovered behind his son, removing his coat and smoothing his curls. He was a large, comfortable man with shaggy hair, fine gray eyes and a long, pleasant face, a good man, satisfied with his life, his work, his child, although perhaps, lately, not his wife. Johannah liked him. She would have liked him even if he hadn't married Kate. She certainly liked him more than Ritchie O'Shea.

  "Another time, Dermot. I've an appointment."

  "I head that Norah Sullivan's man passed away last night."

  Evan pulled at his hand. "Daddy, I have to go."

  "He did." Johannah did not discuss the particulars of her cases. "I'll be on my way. Say hello to Kate."

  "I'll do that. She's working late tonight."

  "Is she?" A suspicious thought popped itself into Johannah's mind before it was immediately rejected. Tralee was a small town and Ritchie O'Shea was something of a celebrity. There would be no stepping out without half the population knowing. Surely Kate knew that.

  On impulse, Johannah wasn't big on physical demonstrations of affection, she hugged Dermot fiercely and then turned away, hurrying down the street, her handbag hitched over her shoulder, her eyes blind with angry tears.

  Ten minutes later, composed again, she knocked on the door of the Sullivan house, a typical, two-story, connected council house, one that looked exactly like a hundred others on the Mary Street side of town.

  Mossie Sullivan, the deceased's oldest son, opened the door. He glanced at her briefcase. "They're upstairs preparing him for the viewing."

  "Here, in the house?"

  Mossie nodded. "Go on up."

  Johannah swallowed. The custom of readying the corpse wasn't uncommon in the smaller villages, but Tralee was a town with undertakers enough for all. Tentatively she climbed the stairs toward
the sound of women's voices, low and companionable, deep in conversation. The door to the largest bedroom stood open. She peeked inside. Three women stood over the body. She recognized Mrs. Sullivan, her sister, Bridget, and another neighbor on the dole, Sally Malone. Only the two were related, but they all looked the same, tired and faded, older than their years, the result of too many children, too little education and husbands whose priorities ran to drinking their paychecks rather than supporting their families.

  "You won't catch me doing this," Bridget said, her hands busy scrubbing the man's fingernails.

  "Someone's got to do it," Norah Sullivan replied.

  "I'm having Fergus cremated."

  "Oh, God, Bridie." Sally Malone looked shocked. "You couldn't."

  "I could, Sally. He'll be cremated and I'm keeping his ashes in an hourglass."

  Norah Sullivan's hands, busy cutting her husband's hair, stilled. "An hourglass? How do you mean?"

  "You know, one of those glass pieces that the sand falls through. You tip it upside down when you're after starting it over again."

  "I know the kind, but why?" asked Norah.

  "Fergus never worked a day in his life," replied Bridie. "If he's an hourglass, like it or not, I'll feckin' make sure he works 'til the Judgment Day."

  The three women burst into laughter.

  Johannah stepped behind the door, out of sight and leaned against the wall, her lip caught between her teeth. What was the protocol when women were dressing a corpse? Did one laugh out loud and interrupt them, or come back later? She decided to wait a few more minutes.

  One of them spoke again. "There's something wrong, Norah."

  "What is it, Sally?"

  "Well, look at him, Norah. Look at his willy."

  "Sally Malone, the man's dead, God rest his soul," said Bridget. "Besides, he's Norah's husband. You shouldn't be looking at his willy. T'isn't decent."