When Light Breaks

by Patti Callahan Henry

  He kissed me. “Why don’t I meet you later tonight?”

  “Babe, you’ll be out so late,” I said, unable to hide the barbs that had entered and attached themselves to my words like sand spurs to the cuff of my jeans.

  “I’ll try and call.” He had reached for my hand, when three men came from the side and grabbed him. “Come on, buddy . . . let’s get outta here.”

  Peyton turned to me, mouthed, “I love you,” and sauntered in his adorable way toward the locker room with his golf bag over his shoulder. A green grass stain ran along the side of his khakis.

  I turned away and blew a long exhale through pursed lips. My stomach gripped in a fist. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt off-kilter. There was something I should be looking at, but I didn’t know where to find it. I rubbed my eyes. I was letting the chaos and being overextended affect my feelings, then was placing them smack on top of Peyton. I loved this kind man who’d wrapped his arms and his life around me.

  I sat down at a wrought iron table on the round stone patio at the back of the clubhouse, propped my chin in my palm, and dug my elbow into the tiny holes of the iron.

  I’d been watching these pro players for years. I knew about their long hours on the road, their late nights with the guys. Right now, with my stomach in a tight lump, my throat constricted, I couldn’t thread the positive feelings through my insides to where love resided. Then I remembered all the things I loved about Peyton: the way he walked, talked, touched me, loved me. I dwelt on the way he made me feel the minute he came in a room—how he filled my heart.

  I stood, stretched, and headed home to family dinner—one of the mainstays of life I cherished.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The following morning I rose early and finished my three-mile run before the sun met the horizon. I stood on what felt like the edge of the world, but was merely the community dock. This was the only quiet time I would have all day. My breath came quick, and I felt as though I were the only human alive in the gentle morning with the whirring cicadas and chirping frogs.

  The sun shimmered below a sliver of pink cloud, then burst into flame at the borders. I lifted a hand to shield my eyes, leaned into a lunge. My breath slowed. I stood and then bent forward at the waist, stretched my hamstrings to the groaning point, then hung there, viewing the coastal world from upside down.

  The palmetto branches waved at me in reverse patterns; firmament and pavement switched places as a running shoe appeared in the asphalt sky. I jumped upright and smiled at Charlotte.

  “You went without me.”

  “I did. I’m sorry.” I grimaced. “My day is so insane and I wanted to get started. . . . I couldn’t sleep anyway. But,” I sighed, “I could now. . . .” I sat on a bleached-wood bench and dropped my hands onto my knees.

  “Girlfriend, you’ve got two more months of this wedding stuff. You better learn to pace yourself a little better.”

  I glanced up at my friend. “Oh, it’s not the wedding. Now would be a very good time to have Mama.”

  Charlotte squeezed me tighter. “I know. But I promise I’m here to do whatever you need.”

  “I know,” I said and sighed. “Hey, you don’t have any of those old boyfriends you’ve stayed just friends with in a band, do you?”

  “No, why?”

  “I need a band.”

  “Can’t help you there.” She stood and stretched. “I guess I’ll run without you this morning, unless you’re up for another three miles or so.”

  “No way. I have to be at Verandah House by eight a.m., then I have two tour meetings, and I’m seeing your mom about the flowers at three and . . .”

  “I’ll catch up with you there,” she said. “And don’t forget the shower your future mother-in-law is holding in your honor is at seven tonight.”

  I groaned. “That is tonight, isn’t it?”

  “You looking forward to it?”

  “Not so much,” I said. “It’s our fifth shower. Peyton and I stand there grinning like complete fools oohing and aahing over gifts—it’s so arcane and embarrassing.”

  “At least you called him Peyton this time.”

  I scrunched up my face. “Very funny. That was a completely honest mistake. Maeve asked me about him—”

  “Okay, then.” She pulled her tank top down over her stomach and started to run in place. “Meet you at Mom’s shop at three today. . . .” She reached her arms over her head and went off running, waving over her shoulder.

  I waved back and then stared out over the river. I had placed Maeve’s story in the back of my mind. There was too much to do to let my thoughts wander aimlessly down the path of her past losses. But staring at the water, I thought of her oil painting of boats on a bay and smiled, warmth filling my chest.

  The motor operating the head and foot of Maeve’s bed would surely burn out any moment now. Up, down it went, halfway up, all the way down, head, foot. My nerves were raw and the whirring rubbed like a nail file on the edges of my skin. She’d been playing with the bed controls and ignoring me since I’d walked in the door half an hour earlier.

  “Stop,” I said, my teeth grinding against each other.

  She jerked her head up from the fascinating vantage point of her feet and glanced at me with a dead stare. “Who are you?”

  I took a deep breath. I shouldn’t have snapped at her like that. I softened my voice. “I’m Kara Larson. I came to sit with you again today. Would you like to play cards? Or I can read to you, if you’d like.”

  “How about poker?” She laughed.

  I grinned. “Okay.”

  “You know,” she said in a broken voice, “I’ve been waiting for you to come back.”

  “I’ve been here for thirty minutes.” I patted the bed rail.

  “Well, dear, why haven’t you said anything?” She moved her eyebrows together.

  “I have—” I stopped. “Why don’t I get some cards so we can play for the last thirty minutes I’m here.”

  “Are you on such a tight schedule?” She lifted her hands as a question. Her voice was soft, melodic, almost like a lullaby I’d heard once and then forgotten.

  “I do have a crazy day,” I said.

  “You are exhausted and frail. You must not let life eat at you this way, must not let it take your energy from you. Life can either nourish or drain you.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “Well, before we continue with my story, dear, tell me a little bit more about yourself, your mum and da and, of course, your Jack.”

  “My mama left us when I was nine years old. Jack left when I was fourteen. That’s really all there is to it. So . . .”

  “That’s never all there is to it. You poor dear—your mum left the family?”

  I shook my head. “No, she died. . . .” I turned away with the sting of withheld tears behind my eyes; I would not cry in front of a stranger.

  “Oh . . . but there is a difference, no?”

  “Not in this case, there isn’t. So, tell me about what brought you here to South Carolina.”

  “Ah, so you don’t want to talk about you.”

  “I don’t.” I fiddled with the side of her bedcover, spread the fringe in an even pattern across the sheet.

  “Well, then. Where was I in my story?” She gazed upward. “When his hooker—”

  “His hooker?” I took a sharp breath and suppressed a laugh, held my palm over my mouth.

  She glanced at me. “A hooker, my dear, is a sailboat in our Galway Bay. It is a sailboat so distinct there is no other like it in the world. It has three brown sails, and is bowed like a water creature flying over the sea. This boat has carried and nourished our Claddagh village for hundreds of years, bringing in the herring and cod.” She pointed to the oil painting on the wall.

  “I see,” I said, glancing at the sailboats moored to a foreign dock.

  “Trawlers have replaced these boats—but Richard fished with nets from his hooker even when they were telling us we needed to use trawlers, th
at we would be lost to the modern world.”

  I pointed to the painting. “Is that Galway Bay?”

  She smiled. “Ah, yes, it is.” Maeve stared off at the ceiling and continued. “When his brown sails flew back to the bay, I was filled, not emptied. There was nothing more I could do, but it overflowed my heart, spilled into my soul for all of my life. The simple sight . . .”

  I took a deep breath. “What?” Her story had wound around to so many places, I was uncertain where we were in this timeline of leaving and returning, of lost and found. Her eyes came back to mine from the far-off place she’d gone. “There are certain people, certain events that will fill you up, and others that will drain you. And whatever is in your life is taking life from you. I can see it.”

  Her words caused an ache, like an old bruise, to rise in the middle of my belly—the ache for Mama. Her words were something a mama, my mama, would have said. A warm swelling rose to the base of my throat. I placed my hand there, tried to swallow.

  “I’ve upset you,” Maeve said in her singsong way.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’m tired.”

  “That is what I’m trying to say to you—no need for that.” She glanced around the room as if she expected someone else. Then she leaned forward and patted her hair. “Did you find him?”

  “Find who?” I asked.

  “Jack,” she said.

  “Of course not. I’m not looking for him.”

  “I looked for him everywhere I could—for months, then years I waited.”

  “Tell me.” I felt I was on the edge of a new day, a new discovery.

  “My parents, they didn’t like him at all. He lived across the lane, you understand?”

  I nodded.

  Then Maeve slipped into the place of story, the place where she must have lived and understood back then.

  “Spruce trees hang low and cast shadows between us. Long whispers of leaves and wind carry our words back and forth. The houses are lime-washed, and the roads are mud in some places, cobblestone in others. When it rains, the houses are splattered with mud, making Claddagh appear as though we don’t take care of our clachans built in jagged rows. But we are neat, clean, and we love our land. From my home at the edge of the sea I look up to St. Mary’s on the Hill and down the path to the bay and Nimmo’s pier. I think how strange this is—how we worship God and nature at the same time.”

  She stopped, her mouth open.

  I touched her hand. “It sounds like a beautiful place.” And I meant it; I wanted to go see this magical village.

  “You have never seen nor will you ever see anything more beautiful than the simple, exquisite Claddagh village. Rocks are strewn at the side of the road; peat moss grows at the edges. Behind our homes there is the Big Grass, where we play hopscotch and tag and the boys hurl rocks. We dive for coppers—coins—for the tourists and play hide-and-seek by the water. The wind off the bay is often harsh, but never too much for us. Never. The wind tastes and smells of freedom and life and sailboats. . . .” She stared off toward the ceiling. “The sky is blue—so deep and wide and changing by the minute. It is the year 1918, the year I am nine years old, that I know I love him. He has dark hair, the same color as the sky before night—when the sun is gone, but the light has not fully escaped. His eyes . . .” Maeve looked at me, squinted as if she’d forgotten I was there.

  I nodded for her to continue.

  “Where was I?” she asked.

  “His eyes, Maeve.”

  “No, not his eyes. The morning . . . the morning he left.”

  “Yes, the morning he left.”

  “It is 1922. I am thirteen years old when I understand that he loves me as much as I love him. I’d known I loved him since I was nine years old, but ahya, my mam told me no one knows who they love at nine years old. But, Kara . . .” She looked at me, leaned forward. “It doesn’t matter the age, only the knowing. Mam told me I didn’t even know what I wanted for dinner, much less who I loved, but I told her that I knew who I loved and what I wanted for dinner.”

  Maeve said this last sentence with a voice and a face so young that I laughed before I could stop myself.

  Her mouth formed a round O as she blew out a long breath. “You know, Mam wanted me to marry the boy down the lane— always had. It was decided when I was born. But I loved Richard, I did. But soon—you’ve got to know—soon, our families’ expectations influence what we believe, who we love.”

  “Yes?” I asked, eager for more.

  “Oh, yes, dear. This is the thing we must guard against: that others’ expectations, especially our families’, do not become our own.”

  Then in a song of story, Maeve described her home and her love for the boy across the lane.

  “The morning arrives cold and empty—I feel it when I wake between my two sisters. I shiver, and pull the quilt to my chin. The previous day was the most beautiful day of my life—we had a procession to carry Our Lady of Galway statue to St. Mary’s on the Hill. She’d returned from Dublin after being cleaned, she did. He and I had marched together in the procession, brushing our fingertips against each other, singing the hymns, holding our rosary beads. All in our village, even our houses, were dressed in finery. But the next morning an unfamiliar sound rises in the predawn light—gravel crunching, low voices.

  “I crawl from between my sisters, put my feet into the lamb-skin slippers made from sheep on the green hills. I slip down to the front door, past my brother’s room, past my parents’ room. The fireplace is full of ashes. I open the front door a crack, enough that a blast of frigid air sucks the breath from my lungs. I become even shorter of breath as I spy the dark cart, as black and gaping open as an evil monster, in front of Richard’s home. We have no streetlights, so only the full moon reveals the road.

  “I draw my shawl around me, open the door wider. I pray to the statue we had carried up the hill just the day before. Oh, Our Lady of Galway, please don’t let anything be wrong with Richard. I’ll be a nun, I’ll sacrifice . . . just not him. I reach up and touch the Siera tile over our doorway that signals our dedication to Jesus. These are the selfish words I pray—to help me, not Richard’s family, but only me. Maybe what happened afterward was my punishment . . . like the color of the sky—gray and shadowed with the brown sails of the Claddagh fishermen—” Maeve stopped, stared at me, lost as though she’d wandered down this lane where Richard lived, and found only me on the whitewashed stoop.

  “Go on, Maeve. The black cart . . .”

  Her face lit from within. “Yes, yes. Please, not Richard, I begged.” Maeve grabbed my hand. “Have you ever been that desperate? Begging, begging . . .”

  She didn’t wait for an answer; I had none. She stared up at the ceiling as if watching the story on a screen.

  “My wild black curls fly around my head in the cold, my thin, transparent skin turns red in an instant. I step out onto the stoop, open my mouth to call or scream for Richard, but only hollow sounds come from my throat. I see no one; emptiness as wide as the world from end to end rises within me. I remember then an ancient proverb I’d been told—what fills the eye fills the heart. Then footsteps come from behind and I turn to Da. I scream at him.”

  Maeve stopped talking, her hands flailed through the air. “Da, Da . . . Da!” She sat up with a jerk.

  I grabbed her arm. “Maeve, it’s Kara. . . .”

  She stopped, looked at me. “I know you’re Kara. I’m not daft, dear one. Let me tell my story. Then my da grabs my elbow, pulls me into the house, tells me that the problem across the lane is none of our concern. I holler that what is across the street is not a problem, but a family, a boy I love. He tells me, ‘Maeve, don’t let your mother hear you scream. You are already the wildflower in our family.’ Da pulls me toward him. I push him away, ask if Richard is dead, when Mam’s rose fragrance washes over me; I lift my head to hear her tell me, ‘It is as I’ve told you, Maeve. That family is trouble. Always was. Now look what they have brought to the lane—fear and death
.’

  “Mam’s hands hold rosary beads, and she rolls them between her fingers: one by one. Her lips move in the familiar cadence of the Hail Marys that surely my mouth memorized even when I didn’t know what I was saying. ‘God rest their souls,’ my mam says. I grab her. ‘What do you mean, their souls?’ I lunge forward. My shawl falls to the wood floor; the fringe lands in the fireplace. My voice lifts higher and higher until I am screeching at Mam. ‘What do you mean their souls?’

  “My mam closes her eyes and tells me: Richard’s parents have passed on. My legs crumble beneath me. I fall to the wooden floor. Pain spikes through my knees as I ask what happened.

  “My da places his hand on top of my head, and anyone who saw us might have thought he was a priest who had come to bless the child. He tells me, ‘They were caught up in the trouble at the pub in Galway. Someone recognized their eldest son who was with them.” I calculate backward from Richard, the youngest, to the fifth and oldest child, who was in his twenties and widely known to have been involved in the Easter Rising.

  “I stumble to stand. ‘Where’s Richard?’ I ask, and move toward the door. Mam grabs my wrist, hisses, ‘Don’t you dare go out there and let the neighbors think you are . . . part of this, that you are involved with the family. The Garda Siochana—the Irish police—will come question us, involve us. Stay in the house.’

  “ ‘What will they do with Richard?’ I cry when Mam steps forward, places her palm on the side of my face. ‘Maeve, you know we have Industrial Schools.’

  “I push at Mam’s hand, run for the front door, shove it open and spring across the street faster than I believed I knew how to run. The cart sits flat and cold, angry and black underneath my hand as I run into it, stop myself with an open palm. The cart rocks against my weight.

  “A garda emerges from the other side of the hearse, his club raised high, his face angry and red, splotched and faded around his nose. When he looks at me, he lowers his club, then leans down to me. ‘Child, go back to your home. This you do not need to see.’ I straighten my shoulders. ‘Where is their youngest son? I need to see him.’