“To answer your second question, I could wait no longer to reveal that I am your father, because two children will arrive in the New Year, and I want to rightly claim them as my grandchildren.”
“And you shall,” Francis laughed. “You have also solved the mystery of why I always received a generous gift from you on All Hallows.”
“Well, I couldn’t give you a gift for Christmas, as I would have wished, and so I gave a gift to you on All Hallows when it could be received unnoticed by anyone.”
“When I told my mother of this unusual gift, she asked that I let it remain our secret, revealing it to none other. I promised I would. Kate told me you did the same for young Eoin, even though you knew he wasn’t my biological son.”
“You are my biological son. Kate is your wife, my daughter-in-law and Eoin’s mother, and I love all three of you.”
“Am I the last person in this room to have received this information?”
“Yes, son, but it was definitely not by plan. When Kate was alone with a young child, she revealed to me her indiscretion. I, in turn, revealed mine. Our two lost souls became kindred spirits.
“Not wanting any secrets between us, I told Genevieve before I asked her to marry me.” In the silence that followed, Francis’ mind seemed to have wandered beyond the boundaries of the living room.
“Is there something that is troubling you, Francis?”
“If you had died before the man I knew as my father, I would never have known you were my father, and there would be no proof of your ever having had a child.”
“Love needs no proof.”
Francis stood up and walked towards Eoin and within arms reach of each other, they simultaneously reached out and clasped one another in a long embrace.
“Dad,” the young man said, and was answered by the single word, “Son.”
Afterwards Genevieve said she would make the tea. Francis said it was late, and they had better go home so as not to keep their neighbor, who was staying with Eoin, up too late.
“Now, all secrets are out in the open,” Kate said. Then looking around at all, added, “They are, aren’t they?”
“Yes, thank God,” Eoin laughed.
“Kate, I’d like you to come to Gory with me, so each of us can take whatever we want from the house before it and its contents are auctioned,” Genevieve suggested.
“When?”
“Sunday would be good. Do you have Sunday off, Kate?”
“Yes, I do, and will happily go with you.”
“I hope you two gentlemen will help in getting the things we choose to keep into Francis’ truck, and bringing them up to Dublin.”
“I’m free,” Eoin stated.
“As am I,” Francis added.
“Then it’s all settled for Sunday. We’ll all meet here for breakfast after the eight o’clock mass, have breakfast, and leave right after, if that’s agreeable to all.”
It was.
When they arrived at the house in Gory, Genevieve, horrified by the weeds that had overtaken her usually well-maintained garden, sighed.
“Don’t worry, love. Francis and I will do battle with those weeds while you and Kate do your sorting indoors.”
“Thank you both,” responded the grateful Genevieve.
As she entered the house, Kate asked, “You will miss this house, will you not?”
“Yes and no. I always regretted agreeing to move here from Dublin.” Before Kate could ask another question, her mother spoke.
“Let’s start upstairs in the storage area and work our way down.”
“What storage area?”
“In the master bedroom there is a door that leads into a partially finished room. We did not need another room, and so we used it for storage. It came in very handy for your father and me when you and your brothers were growing up, because we could lock away birthday and Christmas presents there.”
“It’s locked?”
“Your father was afraid, since it was an unfinished room, that the boys might come upon it and, in fooling around, fall though the widely-separated plank floor and hurt themselves. So he put a lock on it.”
Entering the bedroom, Kate looked around. “I don’t see another door.”
“It’s a low door—over there behind that chair,” her mother said, pointing toward it. “One needs to bend down to enter, but once inside, one can stand up.”
Kate walked ahead of her mother and removed the chair.
“Taped to the hem of the drapes, you’ll find the key.”
Kate inserted the key and opened the door. Genevieve stretched her arm in, pulled a cord, and a light came on.
“This is a very large storage area,” Kate said in surprise. “Oh good grief, there are all my Hallows’ Eve’s costumes. You kept every one of them,” Kate laughed. “They are lovely.”
“The year you deemed yourself too grown up to go trick-or-treating, you told me you had hated every one of them.”
“It was very cruel of me to say that. They are beautiful. It wasn’t the costumes I disliked; it was being different that I objected to. All the other children wore old hand-me-down clothes, or an assortment of things they themselves had put together. The other children would ask if I was going to a fancy dress ball and say things that made me want to hide instead of joining in the fun. In my pretty as a picture outfit, I didn’t fit in.”
“I’m so sorry, Kate. I didn’t know the costumes were received by your friends in such a manner. You certainly did look beautiful in them, but it was all spoiled for you by those remarks.”
“The librarian scolded some children who pulled at my Bo Peep outfit and laughed.”
“Oh, Helena, yes, she was very fond of you. When I go into the library, she always asks how you’re doing. I told her about Eoin and what a smart boy he is. She’ll be delighted to hear you are going to have twins.”
“I had thought you did not like her because of dad’s friendliness towards her.”
“Heavens, Kate, I’d have had to eliminate everyone in town if that were so. Your father engaged everyone in conversation. It was not Helena that was at fault. It was the state of our marriage at that time. Your father had time for everyone, it seemed, but me. That is what I resented. You, unfortunately, were born into a family with a deteriorating marriage. Not only that, but shortly after you were born I fell into a horrible state of depression which lasted over a year. That very important year of your life, when we should have bonded, was lost to us.
“I lost a great deal of weight. I looked like a skeleton. The doctor wanted to hospitalize me, but I refused to enter the hospital. I was given a list of highly nourishing food items to eat, but I couldn’t get them down. I knew it was up to me to break out of that awful state I was in. After looking at you asleep in your crib, I decided the boys were older and did not need me as much. You would be my reason to fight.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I gathered all my favorite foods from childhood onwards and began eating. Soon my favorite foods were no longer my favorite foods, but by then I had gained weight. That summer it seemed as though I put ice cream on everything except my tea, until I felt I never wanted to see or taste another scoop of ice cream. My efforts bore fruit. During the time I was nonfunctional, your father took care of you. When I regained my health, you continued to go to him with all your problems and for all your needs.”
“How very sad!”
“Yes, yet good. Although I was deeply saddened that I had lost out, I was grateful that he took such good care of you. You were only a baby; you needed at least one parent to attend to your needs.
“When my strength returned I decided I needed to socialize. Eoin spoke with people daily in his practice. When I suggested that I get a job, he would not consider it. So I joined gatherings, even some I had no interest in, in order to meet people. Soon I knew almost everyone in Gory. Then I began to give parties for every occasion that presented itself. My parties were a big hit. Everyone sought an invitation. A
fter a few years, however, I wearied of them and wished to stop, but found that might be quite difficult because the people expected them. The year I sprained my ankle was a blessing that came with pain. That was the year I could finally excuse myself from giving parties. I was out of the loop.”
“But you still gave the annual children’s Christmas party long after you stopped giving parties for adults, even after I went to boarding school. You planned them for the third day after my return home so that I could unwind before meeting all my friends at the party. I loved those Christmas parties.”
“Did you really? You never said so before.”
“You invited all the children in town, even the Gillespie boys whom you did not like.”
“I did not dislike them. What I disliked was that they were unsupervised and were friends with my daughter.”
“That was not their fault.”
“Of course not, but if one of your twins is a girl, and we have this discussion when she is eleven or twelve years old, I have a feeling your response will be a lot different. We protect our daughters.”
“No, Momma, that’s a fallacy.”
“What?”
“When a girl gets pregnant she pays the piper, but the boy is rarely held accountable. If the girl has the audacity to say he was the one to impregnate her, he’ll deny it. If the girl persists, she may be accused of having sexual encounters with many men, and so the family name and her name will be thoroughly blackened. So under these circumstances, it is usually deemed a better choice to hide the pregnancy and for her to leave home quietly. She will be sent to a home where she will work until the baby is born, and the child will be put up for adoption.”
“Sadly, back then I thought those girls were immoral.”
“Did you not question the boy’s part in these situations?”
“No. I was part of the kind of thinking you just described. I was thoroughly indoctrinated, as were my peers. You have changed my point of view on these matters. After I got over the hurt that you kept the birth of my first grandson hidden from me (he was four years old before you brought him out of the shadows), I realized, if our roles were reversed, I, too, might not have revealed the birth to someone who thought like me. And so, with much difficulty in finding the lane, I made my way there to apologize.”
“I’m very glad you made that trip.”
“Are you packing up those Hallows’ Eve costumes to discard or to save?”
“To keep,” Kate laughed. “Those cribs over there, were they Kieran and Rory’s?”
“No, one was mine, and the other was yours.”
“I did not know you kept those cribs.”
“I did, and your baby carriage, and doll carriage as well.”
They both laughed as Kate moved through the boxes and an assortment of objects toward the cribs. Halfway there, she bumped into her roller skates hanging from the rafters. Memories flooded back, lost and forgotten treasures were found, and Kate and Genevieve regaled each other with tales and recollections and much laughter.
“All right, where are you ladies hiding?” Eoin’s voice from downstairs rang out loud and clear.
“Come up here,” Genevieve answered.
Eoin and Francis ascended the stairs.
“It has taken us more time than we thought,” Kate told Francis.
“Your mean you haven’t even sorted through the downstairs yet?” Eoin asked in disbelief.
“No, but what we’re taking from the storage space in here,” Genevieve said, as she pointed to the small open door, “will, no doubt, fill most of the van. So we’ll need to plan a second trip.”
“That little space?” Francis asked, as he looked towards the low door.
“Go over and look in,” Kate urged him. “It’s a small door, but it leads to a large room.”
“That it does,” Francis admitted as he moved out of the way so that Eoin, too, could look into the room.
While Eoin and Francis loaded the van, Kate and Genevieve placed the large cardboard boxes they had brought with them on the floor of the dining room and removed the stacks of newspaper from the boxes. Together they wrapped the Waterford crystal and the china dinner and tea sets in newspaper. In between the layers of crystal and china, they placed bath towels. Soon the van was filled with two cribs, a baby carriage, a child’s chest of drawers, toys, games, lamps, a child’s desk, an assortment of household objects, and the large boxes Kate and Genevieve had packed.
In the van on the drive home, Eoin spoke.
“What were you ladies doing? You had a whole house full of items to decide upon, and you got no further than a storage room?”
“Sometimes one arrives at a precise moment for good clear conversation, and one must take these moments before they are lost.” Genevieve explained.
Eoin shook his head in disbelief.
“Yes,” Francis agreed with her. “That’s exactly what happened last night when Kate and I arrived at your home to tell you you were going to be grandparents again.”
“You’re a very insightful young man, Francis,” Genevieve smiled.
“There was I under the misconception that last night we had a lifetime of ‘precise’ moments, all beautifully fulfilled,” Eoin responded.
“All right, Momma and I promise to have no more such moments until all the work is done,” Kate laughed.
“Eoin and Francis, thank you. You both did a wonderful job weeding, trimming hedges and bushes, and mowing that horribly neglected lawn,” Genevieve said as she leaned over and kissed Eoin, then Francis. “That badly neglected house now looks cared for.”
Plans had been underway for quite some time when the women from the lane and some neighbors of Kate’s from Dalkey arrived at Genevieve’s home for a surprise baby shower. Kate, at eight months pregnant with twins, arrived at her mother’s home as requested with Francis and their son to see the baby carriage, designed for twins, that her mother and Eoin had purchased for them.
Kate was most pleasantly surprised on entering the house to find a baby shower for her was taking place. Among her mother and so many friends were Mary and Ned. As Kate was drawn into the group, Ned, Eoin, Francis, and young Eoin left the house and walked to the local pub.
Kate and many of her friends from the lane continued to meet once a year for a full day’s outing to catch up on the news of their lives. Now at Genevieve’s home they all uttered their amazement at the changes in Eoin O’Toole since his days of dwelling in the lane.
“See what a good woman can do for a man,” Tara said, to the laughter of all present.
Baby gifts were opened with admiration for the giver and the gift, and baby stories were exchanged between the younger and the somewhat older women, while Kate thanked and hugged and was hugged in return amid much laughter and joy.
After fond remembrance over refreshments, Liz confessed, “In spite of all my present conveniences, I miss the lane and all its people.”
“Me, too,” Siobhan added.
“For myself, I’d rather be living in the lane,” Kathleen added her voice to the lament, “But for my children and grandchildren, I’m glad we’re living in a flat with indoor plumbing. My grandchildren can’t visualize a home without a bathroom.”
“Spoiled is what they are now,” laughed Monica.
“Maybe so, but we all want something better for our children,” Peg said in a dreamlike fashion.
“I’d like my present living accommodations with all its conveniences to be in the lane,” Tara concluded.
“Yes, I suppose that is what all of us want,” Kate agreed, “the best of worlds, all the amenities and conveniences in our little village within a village.”
CHAPTER 17
Less than a month later, Kate gave birth to twin girls. To the distress of all and the utter devastation of Francis, Kate died just hours after the birth. Francis’ grief for his wife was compounded by guilt for the years lost to them by his living in England. That unnecessary absence tortured him.
“W
hy,” in distress, he asked his father, “could Kate give birth to Eoin without any medical assistance in his cottage with no conveniences, and now in a maternity hospital under the watchful eyes of a doctor and nurses, die in childbirth?”
“There is no answer,” Francis. “It was by all accounts a more difficult birth than her previous one.”
Francis was inconsolable. Anger from his own actions seeped into his grief like oil in water, leaving a terrible residue.
“Kate was like a daughter to me, Francis,” his father softly said, as he remembered her first visit to his cottage to nurse him back to health and their conversations. “She reminded me of your mother. I felt honored to be able to help her with her legal entanglement caused by Harry Brown. Although I never met that man, I know him to be evil. How else could he have put Kate through such anguish?”
“Dad, my actions were no better than Harry’s. I abandoned her when she was pregnant. I wasn’t there to defend her against Harry’s threat. You were more a father to the boy than I was.”
“Your reasons were completely different. Harry wanted the boy to please his wife and appease his father-in-law.”
“I believe, when Harry got to know young Eoin, he liked the boy. Perhaps he was sorry he wasn’t part of the boy’s life. Harry saved Eoin’s life—partially for Eoin’s sake, but mostly because he loved Kate. He, too, had made a mess of his life and lived to regret it before he died.”
“Kate forgave your absence from her and Eoin’s life. You and Kate were very happy together since your return. Cherish those moment of your life, not only for your sake, but for Eoin and your infant daughters. They are all depending on you. You need to come to terms with Kate’s death, for the children’s sake.”
The Lane Page 20
