May you live to be a hundred years
With one extra year to repent.
Opening the door slowly, Erin entered first. Marge looked up from the couch. All was calm. All was airy and light. Soft music floated through the confined space.
“Do you want to be alone with him?” Erin asked Tony. “Marge and I can go outside. Or I’ll stay if you want me to.”
“Stay,” Tony said.
Marge gave Tony a respectful nod and slid out to the front deck.
Shoulder to shoulder, Tony and Erin approached the man who was now a shadow of their father. Erin tried to think of how his state would appear to Tony since he hadn’t seen any of the progression.
Tony’s lips were pressed together. A hint of horror was in his eyes.
Erin placed her hand on their father’s shoulder and leaned close. “Dad, Tony is here. He came from Maui to be with you.”
A weak, nearly imperceptible sound echoed in what remained of the great cavity of Jack O’Riley’s barrel chest.
“Hi, Dad.” Tony reached forward but didn’t seem to know if he should touch his dad.
Erin whispered, “It’s okay. Here.”
She reached for their father’s good arm and gently laid it bent across his narrow middle, making it easy for Tony to put his hand in his father’s hand.
Tony reached for it as if he were now the one extending the “right hand of fellowship” in a manly handshake. As soon as he grasped his father’s hand, though, the energy dissipated. Tony repositioned himself, moving to the other side of the bed to be on the side that wasn’t paralyzed. He tenderly stroked his father’s weakened hand the way an awestruck parent gentles the hand of a sleeping newborn.
“Dad . . .” Tony cleared his throat. He leaned closer and tried again. “Dad, I want you to know that I’m sorry. In so many ways. I’m really sorry.”
Thin, opaque tears slowly edged from the corner of their father’s closed eyes and slid over his hollowed cheeks.
Tony looked at Erin with a stunned expression. “Did he hear me? Do you think he heard me?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it. His tears are all he has left with which to communicate.” Erin swallowed back her own tears.
Tony let go of his father’s hand and crumbled to his knees. He lowered his head, pressing his forehead against the side of the hospital bed. With trembling emotion in his voice, Tony spoke the purifying words. “Please forgive me, Dad. I really messed up.”
As Erin watched, her father seemed to draw on every last inch of energy he had. He dragged his hand to the side of the bed and placed his frail fingers on Tony’s head, as if in preparation to extend a blessing.
Erin covered her mouth with her hand and blinked back the tears. She was witnessing the answer to her mother’s prayers after all those years.
A breathy sound floated from their father’s parted lips. It seemed to take all the strength left in him to make the weak reverberation.
It was enough.
Tony’s apology had been received and accepted. Erin knew it.
And by the expression on Tony’s face, he knew it, too. He rose to his feet and took his father’s hand in his. Tony’s face was wet with tears, as was their father’s.
Erin’s heart raced. Like her mother, she had hoped and prayed for this moment but never imagined the sense of beauty that filled the room.
Reaching for a couple of washcloths, she handed one to Tony and used the other to dry her father’s tears. His eyes had been closed the whole time, and she imagined he was too weak to open them. What surprised her was that the deep worry lines still were etched into his forehead. She would have thought that after this holy moment he would be at peace.
Erin adjusted his support pillows and did what she had done a number of times during this journey. She tried to imagine what her father was thinking and feeling right now. What did he need that he was unable to express?
She noticed that his lower lip was trembling.
“Dad, is there something you want to say?”
He drew in a long, threadlike breath, but no sound came out. The worry lines deepened.
“Dad, it’s okay. Tony knows that you’ve forgiven him.”
Thin tears flowed again. Her father’s chin dipped. The veins in his neck quivered.
“What is it, Dad?” Erin felt at a loss. He seemed to be using the few small muscles he had left to communicate, but she couldn’t decipher any of the signals.
Then a clear thought came to her. What if her dad wanted to apologize to Tony? What if he wanted to ask Tony to forgive him for the break in their relationship? Erin couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to have something like that in your heart and not to be able to speak it when you knew the end was so close and the person you wanted to communicate with was only inches away.
Erin leaned in. She rested her hand on her father’s shoulder. “Daddy, do you want to ask Tony to forgive you, too?”
A faint sound like a distant birdcall rose from his throat, and a flood of tears poured over his cheeks.
“Oh, Dad.” Tony leaned in and spoke firmly. “You don’t even have to ask. It’s okay. I forgive you.”
Then Tony bent down and held his father’s face the way a coach would congratulate an athlete who had run a stellar race and collapsed after crossing the finish line. “You’re free, Dad. I hold nothing against you. I know that you hold nothing against me. Be at peace.”
Erin stepped back and watched an astounding transformation take place in front of her. It was as if a wave had washed over the shore of her father’s face. As it receded, the invisible wave took with it all the anxious, agitated worry lines, carrying them out to the deepest sea and burying them forever.
Tony leaned closer. He pressed a holy kiss on his father’s smooth forehead and then drew himself upright. He wiped the last of his tears with the palm of his hand and stood quietly beside the bed as he and Erin held each other’s gaze.
The shared moment came to a jarring halt when Tony’s cell phone rang. Erin looked at their father. He had returned to his place of deep sleep. No more worry lines dug into his forehead. His slight and steady breaths eased in and out. The cell phone chime didn’t bother him. Nothing seemed to be bothering him.
Tony stepped into the kitchen to take the call. It lasted only a few minutes, and when he returned he took a seat beside his father’s bed, waiting, watching, being fully present for the first time in two decades.
Erin went outside where Marge waited on the deck. She looked up from her book. Erin sat beside her and took the corner of the blanket Marge had across her lap and tucked herself under the warmth beside Marge.
“Is everything okay?” Marge asked.
“Yes.” Erin didn’t have the emotional reserve to try to articulate the moment she and her brother had just experienced.
“And what about you?” Marge asked. “Are you all right?”
Erin crossed her legs. She leaned in a little closer to Marge. “I wish I hadn’t left when Delores arrived.”
“It was understandable, Erin. You’ve had a lot to handle for a long time. Delores asked me to tell you a few things. Would you like to hear them now, or do you want to wait?”
“She has cancer, doesn’t she?”
Marge nodded. “Ovarian. Stage four.”
Erin let out a low breath. “How long?” She meant How long does Delores still have? but Marge answered the question differently.
“She told me she had breast cancer five years ago, but it was in remission when she married your father. The ovarian cancer was diagnosed this spring right before they were supposed to go to Ireland. She made several trips to a treatment center in Mexico earlier in the summer. She’s in Portland now with her nephew. He’s the one who has helped her keep up with the chemo and radiation.”
“He’s the one who brought her here today, isn’t he?” Erin cringed once again at the assumptions she had made about Delores. Wasn’t that what Delores had told Clint at the post office when he shipped her boxes to Mexico? That he shouldn’t assume things about people.
“I imagine so. I didn’t see him. Delores said she didn’t want you to know any of this earlier, but since you weren’t here when she was ready to leave, she asked me to tell you.”
“Did she leave any contact information?”
“No. She seemed to treat this visit with finality. I told her your brother was coming. I hope that’s okay with you.”
“Of course.”
“I thought she might want to meet him, but she was set on leaving when she did.”
“How did she even know my dad was here? When she left, we were planning to move him to Irvine.”
“I asked her the same thing. She said Sylvia gave her updates whenever she needed them.”
Erin nodded. Of course. Six O’clock News Sylvia.
“That’s why she knew she needed to come right away. I could tell it took a lot out of her. She had a hard time walking to the car when she left.”
Erin was beginning to understand more clearly the bond that had formed between her father and Delores. They needed each other. Delores was a strong, unemotional woman who wanted a fresh start, and so did her dad after Faith’s death. Moss Cove had provided that. For both of them the move was a chance to dream a new dream.
Erin looked at the properly hung, expertly painted shutters on either side of the kitchen window and thought of how hard both her dad and Delores had worked to rebuild this cottage. With each paintbrush stroke and hammer thump did they feel they were working together to rebuild their own lives? Or maybe they were trying to work together to leave something behind. Delores inherited the cottage. Who would she pass it on to? Her nephew? Maybe this wonderful place would still be a destination for traditional family vacations as her dad dreamed it would. Maybe one day a few young children—perhaps the children of Delores’s nephew—would explore the tide pools and dance with their mother on the deck.
Either way, Hidden Cottage stood strong while neither Jack nor Delores was able to do the same. The bitterness of death’s slow sting turned in Erin’s stomach like a knife.
“I’m going to try to call her,” Erin said quietly. She stood and was three steps away from the door when it opened and Tony stepped outside, his face flushed.
“Everything okay?”
“I just needed some air.”
“I’ll sit with him,” Marge said.
Tony walked over to where Erin and Marge had been and took in the spectacular view. “This is quite a place.”
“Yes, it is.” Erin smiled when she remembered her dad sitting in his wheelchair in the same spot where Tony now stood surveying the surroundings. “We had a cookout here on the deck when Mike and I first arrived. Jordan and Sierra came on the way home from their honeymoon. Dad was in his wheelchair, right there, where you’re standing. All the locals came. They steamed whole crabs for us.”
Tony pointed to the embroidered name on her fleece jacket. “Would that happen to be Paddy who steamed the crabs?”
“Yes, from Paddy’s Crab Shack. He was here along with all of Dad’s cronies. You would have loved it. This deck turned into a dance floor. We had twinkle lights and music.” Erin grinned. “Dad was happy that night. It was right after Delores left. I can’t imagine all the feelings he has been going through these past few months.”
Erin relayed to Tony all the information Marge had just given her about Delores. She told Tony that she was thinking she would call Delores. “I really wish I hadn’t run out this morning.”
“Well, I wish I hadn’t run out so many years ago.”
Erin gave her brother a sympathetic nod. “All we can do is take it from here and run a good race to the finish.”
“Sounds like what we grew up hearing Dad say.”
“True, but now we’re finally at the place to take it to heart, I guess.”
Tony drew in the sea air, his chin lifted toward the sky the same way their dad drew in the air. “This feels so much like Kipahulu,” he said.
“And what is Kipp—a—whatever you said?”
“It’s the place where I was camping last month on the backside of Maui. It’s pristine like this with rugged coastline and black volcanic rock. Only on Maui it’s about thirty degrees warmer.”
“That would be nice. Believe me, I’ve sat out on this deck many times when I wished it were thirty degrees warmer.” Erin plunged her hands into the pockets of her green fleece and discovered she had put her phone in her pocket. Pulling it out, she checked her directory, clicking through the list until she found what she was looking for.
She held up her cell phone. “I’m going to call Delores.”
“I’ll have a look around while you make your call.”
“If you take that trail through the brambles, you’ll come out at a bench Dad installed at the cliff’s edge. The path through the woods takes you down to some tide pools.”
“Thanks. I won’t be gone long.”
Before dialing Delores’s phone number saved in her cell, Erin rolled back her shoulders and drew in a deep breath. As she exhaled, she closed her eyes and formed a prayer, once again releasing the anger she had felt toward Delores since the beginning. She pressed the Send button, feeling her heart pound. Delores’s voice mail answered.
Erin chose her words carefully. “Delores, this is Erin. If you would like to call me back, that would be great. If you don’t want to call me back, I understand that as well. I want there to be peace between us. I’m sorry I didn’t understand the whole picture of what was going on with you. I know it was your choice to keep your condition private. I want to honor that even though, to be honest, I don’t understand it.”
She took a quick breath and knew she needed to talk fast if she was going to get everything out in one message. “The point is, I know that my father loved you. That should be a good enough reason for me to love you, too, but I don’t think I did a very good job of that. I wish I’d opened my arms and my heart to you. Marge gave me the information you left with her. I’m so sorry you’re going through all this. I’d like to keep in touch, if you would. Mostly I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
When Erin hung up, she had a strong sense that she never would hear from Delores. Yet she felt free. She felt as if she had cleared her own angry thoughts toward Delores and was at peace. Tony and Jack weren’t the only O’Rileys who experienced the mending of a torn relationship that day.
The emotional peaks and valleys had worn her out. Erin went inside and sat beside her father. The marathon wasn’t over but it felt as if a new pace had been set for this race. Best of all, Erin now had Tony with her. Together they would go the final distance.
Later that afternoon Sylvia came by to visit. She brought four other townies with her, including Jo from Jenny Bee’s Fish House. Jo hadn’t seen her favorite breakfast customer for some time, and when she noted how weak and unresponsive he was, she cried.
Erin wondered how much all of this was getting through to her dad. Was he aware of what was going on, or had he used up his last bit of strength in communicating with Tony earlier that afternoon?
After everyone left, Tony brought in his bag and settled into the upstairs bedroom. Erin held her father’s limp hand and hummed softly. More than once she thought her father had slipped away quietly because his chest looked so still. Each time she would lean closer and could tell that he still was breathing in and out like the ocean tide.
Tony volunteered to make dinner after Marge left. Erin didn’t protest one bit. As she sat beside her dad, she kept up a one-sided conversation, recounting memories of childhood, remembering holidays and other happy moments when they were all together.
At one point she felt so engaged with him that she expected to see her father open his eyes and give her the wink of the Irish. But he didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He didn’t squeeze her hand back. He just breathed.
Tony set the tiny kitchen table and placed two bowls of steaming chicken soup in front of each place along with toasted garlic bread and a small plate with apple and cheese wedges. When they sat down together, Tony reached across the table and offered his hand to Erin as had been the habit around the table when they were growing up. They held hands, and Tony prayed. This was a moment Erin hadn’t expected to experience again in her life, and yet there they were, as natural as could be, just the two of them, holding hands and praying, thanking God for his generous provisions to them.
Erin took a sip of the soup from her large spoon, and her taste buds woke up. “Wow! What did you find to put in this? All I had left in there was some rotisserie chicken and a bag of minicarrots.”
“I made use of a few things I found in the cupboard. Do you like it?”
“Yes, it’s delicious.” She took several more sips, savoring the wild rice and slight taste of basil. “I would go so far as to say that aside from the omelets at Jenny Bee’s, this is the best food I’ve eaten since I arrived.”
“You really didn’t inherit Mom’s cleverness for cooking, did you?”
“No, not at all. I’m glad you did.”
Tony seemed to appreciate that praise from his big sister. She wondered if he was beginning to experience the same sort of liberation she had felt when she realized that her father’s 100 percent approval didn’t matter the way it used to. It was more important that she knew within her own spirit that she was becoming the person God had created her to be. Tony seemed to be more his true self than she ever had seen him in the past. She hoped her father had picked that up as well. She hoped part of his being at peace now was in knowing that both his children were doing well.
Erin offered to clean up after dinner so Tony could sit with their dad. He brought a pillow down from the bedroom and said he wanted to keep vigil that night by sleeping on the couch. His offer was a sweet relief for Erin after so many nights of interrupted sleep. She felt exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally.
When she entered the master bedroom, she found two wrapped gifts on the end of the bed. Had Marge placed them there? One was marked for Tony, and the other was for her. Erin sat down and unwrapped her gift. Inside was a beautiful, handcrafted photo album with her name on the cover. She opened to the first page and a bittersweet smile rose.
This was where her childhood photos had ended up. Delores had found that shoe box of her mother’s and had created a beautiful memento. All Erin’s memories were lovingly preserved. Delores had expressed her kindness to Erin in the only way she seemed to know how: she did a project—a beautiful project. As Erin turned each page, she realized this was Delores’s way of showing Jack’s two children that she cared about them.
Erin took her time looking at each photo, remembering the moment the photo represented. Delores seemed to have known, in an uncanny way, the order to put the photos in. Perhaps Erin’s father had helped with the project months ago, separating out the hundreds of pictures.
The last photo in Erin’s album was a picture of her wrapped up in a blanket, sitting beside her father on the tailgate of their old station wagon. Her nine-year-old grin was a great big tangle of teeth, and she was sleepy-eyed in the hints of first light. Erin remembered the morning that shot was taken. Her father had gotten them up to watch the sun rise at the beach on Easter. Her mom was the one taking the picture. By Erin’s calculations her mom would have been very pregnant with her brother and not eager to have her picture taken.
Erin’s dad was sitting beside her on the car’s tailgate with his chin up, shoulders back, and his face to the fresh ocean breeze. She could almost hear his roaring voice. “Top of the morning, Glory!”
She stared at the photo for some time. The man beside her on that tailgate was the father she would hold foremost in her memory. That image of him when he was in the prime of his life, fit and happy, and with his blue eyes twinkling with mischief. That was the Jack O’Riley who would soon be escorted into eternity, the Jack O’Riley who would bow before the Maker of heaven and earth and with his resurrected tongue confess, as he had his entire life, that Jesus Christ was Lord of all.
All would be revealed. All would be made right. The rancid sting of death would be swallowed up in victory.
Soon.