CHAPTER 17

Morning dew held silver upon the grass, sparkled spiderwebs and dampened the soles of Father McIntyre’s shoes as he met the postman in the arc of the road. He smiled at the sound of the fairy-wrens, their chirps waning with the morning light, fading away and evaporating like the mist in the sun. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it, Mr. Cook,” Father McIntyre greeted.

The postman pulled his head out of the canvas, his neck skinny, his face dark as cowhide. “Mornin’, Father. Didn’t hear yeh on the stones.” He lifted a stack of letters tied with twine and handed them to the priest. “Saw yer ad in the paper.” The postman scratched inside his large ear, then inspected his finger. “Gettin’ many bites?”

“A few,” he said sullenly. “Have two families coming this week to meet the children.”

Mr. Cook scrunched up his face. “That’s a good thing, ain’t it, Father? Gettin’ ’em children adopted is a good thing, no?”

Sure it’s a good thing, Father McIntyre answered in his mind. Just like the cliffs and the ocean were good things. But they all made his head spin and his stomach drop. “Yes.” Father McIntyre gave a weak smile. “It’s a good thing.”

Footsteps barreled onto the gravel. “Did it come?” James huffed between breaths.

The postman grinned, settled his hands on his hips. “Expectin’ somepin, son?”

Father McIntyre patted James on the shoulder and rolled his eyes. “He’s been waiting for a letter from Ireland. I told him not to get his hopes up.”

“Ho! T’day’s yer lucky day, m’boy!” Mr. Cook clapped his hands. “Saw one in there. From Limerick, I think.”

Father McIntyre’s stomach dropped again. He shoved the letters into the crook of his arm, locking them with his elbow.

“G’day, gorgeous.” Mr. Cook tipped his hat at the silent girl who joined them, then turned his attention back to the priest. “Be on m’way, now. See yeh in a few weeks, Father.”

“Please open it, Father!” James begged as he held Leonora’s hand, squeezing it in pulses.

With a sigh, Father McIntyre untied the pile of letters, shuffled until he found a thin blue envelope with an Irish stamp, the paper soiled and smudged. He ripped the glue that held the back flap and pulled out the card, read the words and blanched. He read them again, his eyes bobbing left to right, his jaw clicking near his ear.

James followed the priest’s movements. “What’d it say?”

Father McIntyre closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, son.”

“What?” The boy blinked fiercely and tightened his grip on Leonora. “What did it say?”

“There’s no one there, James.” He couldn’t look at the boy. “I’m sorry.”

“But the l-l-letter,” James stammered. “It . . . it was . . . they sent it.”

“The letter was from a priest I know outside Limerick.” Father McIntyre exhaled and his eyes shifted under the lowered lids. “The O’Connells are all gone. They’ve either moved away or . . . passed. I’m sorry, son.”

James dropped Leonora’s hand.

“James . . .” Father McIntyre reached for the boy, but James jumped from his touch. He spun on his heels, splaying gravel as he ran, his head and shoulders plowing forward like a bull with a sword through his neck.

Father McIntyre’s own sword lodged in his heart as he watched the boy hurl across the trail, felt Leonora’s grief-brimmed eyes upon his skin. “He’ll forget with time, Leonora.” His voice was hollow and distant but crisp as ice water. “He just needs time.”

Leonora stepped away, her feet angled toward the cliffs.

“Just leave him be, Leonora.” Father McIntyre reached for her. “Give him space.” But she was already gone.

A great loneliness hung in their wake. He should have never written the letter, and guilt spit cruelly. And so the priest did not rush but walked soberly and carefully upon the bleached pebbles until he reached that invisible line that he did not have the fortitude to pass. There, from the ridge where the sea is first seen and teases in a line above the cliffs, he saw James with toes pointed at the edge of the world, his arms clasped around his knees. Leonora stood behind.

James turned to her and shouted harshly through the sound of waves, pushed her away. The girl did not move. James leaned toward her and shouted again, his face red and wet with tears and anger. But still she stood, her arms hanging loose and immobile. James pounded the ground with his fist and then turned back to the sea and buried his head into his knees.

Leonora moved now. She inched beside him and lowered to the ground. Her tiny, thin arms wrapped around the boy’s shoulders. James struggled against the embrace and she tightened her hold, her arms rigid as steel as she held him as a mother would a child. She rested her head atop of his and held his spine up. This waif of a girl did not let go but held his shoulders so they did not break and she took his burdens and carried them against her own sloped shoulders and her thin spine. And there upon the cliffs where the sea worked daily to beat the sandstone to crumbs, there could be no distinction of one child’s grief from the other’s.

A terrible thickness crowded the Father’s throat and his nostrils flared to keep the tears at bay. This child comforted James when he could not. He brought James suffering and this child brought him warmth. The thickness softened in his throat, but the lines of his jaw grew rigid. Father McIntyre turned away from the children petulantly. To console was easy; to cause a child pain for his own good, for his own future, now that took brute, hard strength.

Father McIntyre stomped down the path, stomped away the tenderness, the warmth and the innocence. He kept his head down as he entered the church and slammed the door to his office. He dropped the pile of worn and traveled letters onto his desk, spilling them out of the loose twine. James’s face, the boy’s raw and open grief, pinched his mind. He covered his face with his hands, rubbed his eyes to rid them of the image. He should have never sent the letter. He could have spared the boy this pain. Father McIntyre pulled his fingers down his face. James would heal in time, he tried to remind himself. Maybe he’d even thank him one day.

The Father sat in his chair and leaned back, rocked against the natural bend of its frame. The fingers of one hand danced against the knuckles of the other until he stopped abruptly and snatched the open letter off the top of the pile. He read it again, carefully this time, and the petulance swirled to anger. He was angry he had written the letter. But he was angrier they had written back. Angry they were alive and wanted James.

His prejudice bubbled now. Some poor Irish farmer wanted James. His James. They shared a name and now they wanted him. For what? To plant potatoes and pull a donkey cart? Pull him out of school and work the brains right out of him? That was not the life for the boy—not for James. Not for his James. Name or no name, blood or not, the boy belonged here.

The letter was sent more than three months ago. His eyes settled on the last line, read it again and again until his blood chilled. They were saving money, coming to Australia.

Father McIntyre held up the letter, pinched the corners with thumb and index finger and tore the paper to pieces, sprinkled the scraps into the wastebasket. “Over my dead body.”