by Grace Palmer
The way her lips pronounced the word cursed made Mae feel for the briefest moment like such a thing could even exist in the world. Perhaps it was just a relic of old school fairy tales, but cursed passing through the gilding of an Irish accent made it feel as though magic was real, curses were real, all of it was real.
Then she blinked and the moment passed. She realized she was standing on a beach with her boyfriend’s ex-wife, talking about curses, and she got very annoyed indeed.
“I must admit,” Mae snapped, “I’m a little weary of talking in circles. It has been difficult since you arrived. I’m sorry to be so rude, but it needs to be said. I don’t know why he thinks he is cursed and I don’t believe in such a childish thing anyhow. Most of all, I don’t appreciate being led in endless riddles. Thank you for the invitation to walk, but I’ll be taking my leave now.”
She had begun to walk away as soon as the words were out of her mouth, but once again, Saoirse’s hand clamped down on her forearm. “Mae, stop.” She thought about pulling away, but the woman’s grip was surprisingly strong.
“I am not here to complicate your life,” Saoirse said. “I am here to mourn.”
That got Mae’s attention. She quirked an eyebrow up and said nothing.
Saoirse studied her face for a long beat before continuing. “Many years ago, when Dominic and I were married, we had a daughter.”
A shadow of sadness had passed over Saoirse’s face. Her gaze was turned inwards, in a way, like she was seeing something totally different than the beauty of Nantucket around them. She was remembering.
“Her name was Aoife. That means ‘joyfully radiant’ in Gaelic. She was that; certainly she was.” A breeze ran past them. It chilled Mae to the bone. “She was three months old when we lost her. One night with us, the next morning gone. Do you know what that is like?”
“I don’t—well. Well, maybe I do. In a way.”
“I thought you might,” Saoirse said. She kept nodding with that solemn look on her face. Like she knew something about life that Mae hadn’t yet learned. “You are not a sorrowful woman, but you have sorrow in you.”
Mae stayed quiet. Saoirse had more to say, she could sense.
“She died thirty years ago tomorrow.”
Mae started to stammer, “Saoirse, I’m—I’m so sorry—”
“No.” Saoirse held up her hand. “It is not your burden to bear. You have enough of those, I think. I do not tell you this to sadden you. Merely to inform you. It is sorrow that brought me here. Nothing more. I hope you sense that I am here for that purpose only.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
Again, a breeze came rippling down the beach that felt far colder than any June breeze in Nantucket had a right to be. Mae shivered, feeling goose bumps pricking up down her arms, her thighs, the back of her neck. The weight of Saoirse’s words and the waltz of her accent combined to give this whole thing an eerie feeling that was totally out of sorts with the sand, the sun, the waves around them.
Mae felt like she was being bewitched. Saoirse had hardly blinked since she’d first stopped Mae from leaving. She had kept her grip on Mae’s arm, too. The points of contact where her fingertips met Mae’s bare skin seemed to be burning hot. It was like all the rules of the world were broken, and the only thing that held any significant weight anymore was Saoirse’s gaze, as blue as the water. Her irises reminded Mae of a vacation that she and Henry had taken once, many years ago. They’d gone down to Belize, and one day they had taken a trip to the site of the Great Blue Hole. One hundred and fifty thousand years ago, it was a cave. Then the sea rose to consume the cave and turned it into a giant sinkhole. The water was so blue there that it hurt Mae’s eyes. Henry made a joke about it being “the throat of the ocean.” Remembering that harmless joke scared her as much now as it did back then. He wanted to go snorkeling in it. Mae refused. She was scared of being swallowed.
She was scared of being swallowed by Saoirse’s gaze, too. There was so much pain in her eyes that Mae shivered once more. The death of her daughter had clearly torn this woman’s heart wide open. And as Mae thought back on it, she realized that she could see signs of the same pain in Dominic. He hid it better than Saoirse did. But when he was sitting quietly by himself, when he thought no one was looking at him, there was an agony in his face that Mae had never fully understood.
Now she did.
“Let us go back now,” Saoirse said. “I wanted only to tell you why I am here.”
“Okay,” Mae said again. She didn’t know what else to say.
Saoirse’s fingertips slid down to linger on Mae’s wrist. The women held hands for one long second.
Then Saoirse let go, and they walked back to Dominic, who had not moved.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked them as they approached.
Mae nodded.
“Yes,” Saoirse answered. “I am done here.”
The three of them turned their backs to the ocean and went walking home through the dunes.
Part III
What the Heart Wants
20
Oliver
Early Friday morning.
One day until the wedding.
It took Oliver eight hours and twenty-six minutes of driving down I-95S to get from Nantucket to the address outside of Philadelphia.
Or rather, that’s how long it would’ve taken, if he hadn’t stopped just before New Haven to think about what he was doing. He stopped for nineteen and a half minutes before deciding to turn around and go back home. He drove an hour and twelve minutes back towards Nantucket before stopping and reconsidering a second time. Then he turned towards Philadelphia once more, and finished the drive at a humming fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit.
All said and done, he didn’t arrive until the early hours of Friday morning.
He didn’t listen to music or the radio the whole trip. All he heard was the rumble of the road under his wheels. One mile at a time, chewing up the distance between him and the man who brought him into this world.
He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t know what was going to happen. He didn’t know anything about anything. All he knew was that he had to keep driving.
The early Friday dawn was sticky and gray. Somehow, he didn’t feel tired. Thirty-six years of anxiety would do that to a guy, he supposed. Thirty-six years of wondering what kind of man could father him and then leave him. Thirty-six years of endless, unceasing lies, one piled on top of the next like a house of cards until it all came crashing down.
Neal and Marcy had raised Oliver and they’d done the best they knew how to do under the circumstances. That was all fine and well and good. He owed them his thanks, of course. They were good-hearted people. But he wasn’t their little boy. He never had been, really. Not because of the biological thing. But because he was a man, in a manner of speaking, from the moment his parents first abandoned him at that—well, wherever they’d abandoned him. The story had shifted over the years. Now, he was beginning to understand why.
Because it was all a lie.
And truth was waiting at #24, 1311 Catfish Lane.
He pulled into a gas station parking lot and stopped. His phone said he had about a half mile to go until he reached his destination. He wanted to take a minute to compose himself before he arrived.
Closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. It was warm from his hands squeezing it tightly. He had a pulsing headache behind his temples. Breathe, idiot, he told himself. He drew in a shuddering breath, held it for as long as he could, then released it softly, like he was trying to fog a mirror. He could feel his heart rate coming down slowly. But as he flexed his fingertips open and closed, he realized he was shaking.
He couldn’t say exactly why. Fear? Hope? Hard to say. Which one was better? Which one was worse? Let’s play out the scenarios, he thought. He started to do just that—picturing a man who looked just like him opening the door and pulling him into a hug, whispering, I missed you, my so
n, into his ear—before he abruptly jerked his eyes open and pulled his forehead off the steering wheel.
No. Scratch that. No scenarios.
He couldn’t control what was going to happen a half mile from now. Screw fear and hope in equal measure. Both were unreliable. He just needed to know.
Gripping the car key between thumb and forefinger, he brought the engine sputtering back to life, pulled out, and kept going the rest of the way to Catfish Lane. The road was empty this early. Rush hour would be starting soon, or whatever passed for rush hour out here in the boonies. But for now, silence. Grayness. A light mist hung wreathed amongst the treetops like sad streamers from a party that had long since broken up.
Oliver frowned when he saw the sign for Valley Forge Trailer Park and double-checked the address in his phone. It was right. This was the place.
He turned in. The smooth asphalt of the highway gave way to an unkempt gravel road. Weeds sprouted up between the patches of dirt. He took his foot off the gas pedal and let the car ease down the way. As he passed, he saw window shades flicking open and suspicious eyes following his progress warily.
“Friendly bunch,” he muttered. An old man was seated in a lawn chair in front of his mobile home, wearing a wifebeater and a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Oliver waved and gritted a smile. The man did nothing but stare back.
When Neal had given him the address at dinner the night before, Oliver had assumed that #24 was an apartment number. He realized now that it was actually a trailer lot number. There were little white signs stuck in each yard, bearing two-digit identifiers in faded black font.
To his left, Oliver saw 19. 21. 23.
He looked right.
20. 22.
There it was.
24.
The trailer looked much the same as the rest of them. Neither the best nor the worst. Probably needed a pressure-wash once-over, or a fresh coat of paint. A pair of foldable camping chairs sat in the front. One was tipped over. Crumpled beer cans studded the ground on all sides.
Oliver swallowed as he steered the car over to the shoulder and put it in park.
One thought was playing in his head incessantly: his father was behind that door.
What was a man supposed to do at a moment like this? A religious man might pray. An angry man might kick the door in. A man like Oliver—a lost man, confused—didn’t know what to fall back on. He had neither faith nor rage to chart his path.
So he just got out of his car before he lost his nerve, walked up, and rapped his knuckles lightly on the door.
It didn’t make a satisfying knocking sound. The door was too thin and too cheap for that. It popped and crackled, kind of, and wiggled in the frame a little bit. It must be poorly hung.
He held his breath and listened.
The trailer park seemed to be breathing as one. The mist floating around his head felt like a giant’s exhale, cool and steamy and somehow gross, all at once. There were crickets, and the occasional creaking of doors opening and then slamming closed. In the distance, a car engine tried and failed to start.
Then, from within—motion.
Oliver heard the sigh of a man, the squeak of a chair as its occupant got up. Footsteps. The inner door wailing as it was forced open.
Then, through the mesh screen, Oliver made eye contact.
It should’ve been a climactic moment. But it felt as awkward as knocking on any stranger’s door at seven in the morning would’ve been. The man glared, waiting for him to talk. He had dark hair in a messy crew-cut that badly needed a touch-up. His eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and he was working a plug of chewing tobacco in his lower lip. They were almost exactly the same height, so their eyes locked perfectly level with each other’s.
Oliver swallowed. “Are you Jesse Turner?” he rasped when he found his voice.
“Who are you?” the man barked instead of answering the question.
“I’m … I’m your son. I think.”
Surely, the man would react to that. He’d smile, or his eyes would widen, or his jaw would drop.
But none of that happened.
He just kept working at the plug of tobacco. Then he raised the red Solo cup in his hand and unleashed a squelching jet of brown spit into it. “Yeah?” he said finally.
“I think so. That’s what I was told, at least.”
“And?”
Oliver was at a loss for words. “And I just, uh … I came to—to find you, I guess.”
“I don’t have any money for you.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want any money.”
“You a drunk?”
“What? No. I mean, I drink, but—no, not a drunk.”
“Churchgoing man?”
“Um. Not really. Lapsed, I guess.”
“Good. Can’t stand churchy types.”
“Uhh … right.”
The man sighed and spit into his cup again. “I s’pose you’re wanting to come in, then.”
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
Oliver was stammering. He had done his level best not to have any expectations for this moment. But this was worse than that, even. This was—what was this? Awful in a way. Cringeworthy, too. Painful and meaningless all at once.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “I guess I’ll come in.”
The man turned and retreated inside without saying another word. He didn’t open the door for Oliver. He just walked away.
Oliver hesitated a moment. He thought about how it had sounded in the stillness of the car, the blur of miles disappearing in his rear-view mirror. How the trees had watched him go past on the interstate, stoic and rigid. There had been so much tension in the air. Like a wire on a crank, reeling him in to this finale. Now, everything felt deflated. Wires snipped. No more pulling. Just loose, dead cord, no purpose left to draw it tight.
He opened the screen door and walked in.
He stopped a few steps in to look around. The place was small and cramped. Not especially dirty, nor especially clean. Some beer cans abandoned in cupholders and some clustered together on the rickety coffee table. Fox News on the television, volume on low. Solo cups everywhere, each with an inch or two of brown tobacco spit in them.
His father—Jesse Turner, according to Neal, a name the man had neither acknowledged nor refuted—was back in his armchair. He lit a cigarette as Oliver stood there and watched him.
“Gonna sit?” the man asked after he’d taken an inhale and released it. The trailer smelled like beer and cigarettes and the pasty, glommed-over stench of too much air freshener.
Oliver sat on the couch across from him.
“Not much of a conversationalist, are you.” It wasn’t really a question. More like a cruel joke, though it wasn’t quite that, either. It was just a thing to say that looked and sounded like everything else around here—gray, flat, unremarkable, vaguely gross.
“I don’t know what to say,” Oliver whispered by way of reply. It wasn’t really an answer. But it was the best he had.
All he knew was that he’d had a powerful, irresistible need to come here. To sit on this cigarette-burned couch and face this man and say—something. Say anything.
He had spoken honestly—he still didn’t know what to say. But now that he was here, he knew what he wanted the man to say to him. He wanted his father to say a single word that had love in it. It didn’t have to be “I love you,” explicitly. That was for Hallmark movies and cheesy books with saccharine endings. It could’ve just been a hello that didn’t sound as callous as everything else the man had said so far. It could’ve been a “how are you?” that had even an ounce of courtesy in it. Just something that was an acknowledgment from one human to the other. Maybe that was what he’d come searching for. The mere fact of being recognized as kin.
Jesse Turner offered none of that. He just grunted and took another drag on his cigarette.
A million things clamored suddenly at Oliver’s throat. “I’m your son,” he said. He
hated how his voice sounded in this tinny little trailer, bouncing off the walls and mingling with the newscaster on the television.
“You already said that.”
“I know.”
“Now you’ve said it twice.”
“I guess.”
“You’re doing a lot of guessing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Now you’re apologizing? Jesus.”
The man grunted again and shook his head like Oliver had disappointed him.
He felt so lost and confused. Okay, yeah, so this wasn’t a Hallmark movie. But couldn’t the man say something that wasn’t a grunt? That didn’t feel like the verbal equivalent of stubbing that cigarette out on Oliver’s chest. He blinked and looked again at the man and this time he got angry. Bile and rage grew molten hot in his stomach.
“You’re supposed to be happy to see me,” he said. It sounded like an accusation. Perhaps it was.
His father looked surprised. “Why would I be happy to see you?”
“Because I’m your son.”
“That’s the third time.”
Oliver was up on his feet before he knew it and then his hand was around the man’s throat and he was choking him, slamming his head against the back of the armchair, not really doing any actual damage but, God, he wanted to do some so badly. He wanted to hurt this man for abandoning him and for snubbing him at the door and for spitting in all these cups everywhere. That was such a foul and disgusting habit.
Jesse Turner was grunting and trying to pry Oliver’s hand off his neck, but Oliver wasn’t letting go until whoompf, one of his father’s fists slammed into Oliver’s stomach and knocked the air out of him. He fell to the ground in surprise, knocking his cheekbone against the edge of the coffee table as he went down. He felt his skin give way to the roughshod edge. Blood trickled. When he opened his eyes, he saw his biological father standing over him with his fists balled up and Oliver’s handprint already blooming into bruises around the base of his jaw.
