Grandmother O’Toole was gone when I woke up.

The house had been quiet and peaceful in the days since.

I’m certain neither Father nor I missed the tinkling of the northern Irish cane bell, but after the third day, Father began to worry.

He’d made some inquiries, and finally Great-Aunt Margaret sent a telegram from Windsor, saying that Grandmother O’Toole was there safe and would be staying for a while.

I don’t know what prevented me from talking with Father about what happened until the morning of the fourth day. I suppose Father had been waiting for me to bring it up, and I for him.

I’d made our breakfast and sat at the table.

I didn’t realize how angry I was at Grandmother O’Toole until I started speaking.

With no preamble whatsoever, just as a forkful of scrambled eggs was about to disappear in my mouth, I dove into it.

“Father. It doesn’t make sense. She told me there were things you had to twirl the cat to learn, but she’s twirled the cat over and over again in her life and has learned nothing.

“She’s twirled the cat about poverty, yet she hates poor people. She’s twirled the cat about being mistreated because of one’s circumstances, yet she hates me because my hair is red and hates anyone whose skin is darker than ours. She’s twirled the cat about being beaten, yet she would club me to death if it weren’t for the cane bell.”

I slammed my fork on the table.

“Doesn’t it seem only logical that if a person has been through all of the grief she has, they’d have nothing but compassion for anyone else who’s been through the same? Shouldn’t that make her realize firsthand what a horrible predicament other people are in? Who but an uncaring beast would heap more anguish onto someone else who’s also been downtrodden? Who but a monster would inflict the same unfair pain that they’d been exposed to upon another human being?”

Father said nothing, but nodded again and again.

He was allowing me to vent my spleen, and I really wanted to. The fact that he didn’t stop me encouraged me to go on.

“She should be institutionalized immediately! There’s no need for me to visit which asylum she’ll go to. If you force me to pick, I’ll choose the one that is the absolute worst. None of them could possibly be harsh enough to punish her.”

I knew exactly what Father’s next four words would be. I’d worked myself up into such a lather, he had almost no choice but to say in a heavy Irish brogue, “Ah, Alvin, me lad –”

I interrupted, “I must warn you, Father, I shall not easily be talked out of my anger.”

Father looked very serious. “I have no intention of talking you out of the way you feel, son. If that’s what you’re expecting me to do, we can end the conversation here and chat about the weather. If, however, you and I try to understand together what is behind your grandmother’s deplorable actions and deplorable condition, that we may be able to accomplish.”

Father knew what I needed. I felt like begging him, Please, let’s do that, but I only nodded.

“Alvin, I believe it all boils down to fear. Your grandmother is the most frightened person I’ve ever known.”

“But, Father, what does she have to be afraid of?”

“Ah, son, I’d have to be much brighter than I am to know that. I only know that fear is a great corrupter. And I’m afraid that given enough time, fear is the great killer of the human spirit.

“She’s only opened the door a crack and allowed you to see a mere fraction of the horrors she’s lived through. And though we may try, there’s simply no way we’ll ever be able to understand or be able to say we would have responded in a manner any different than she did.”

Father put his fork down.

“I never imagined I’d tell you this, Alvin, but right after your dear mother passed away, there was a long conversation about Grandmother O’Toole coming to stay here in Chatham and help raise you. I had serious, serious doubts, son. I know this fear she is infected with is something that fights to keep itself alive; it wants to be passed from mother and father to daughter and son and on and on and on. It lasts for countless generations.”

Father’s voice cracked. “I loved your mother so much and was horribly lost back then, Alvin, horribly.”

My heart broke for Father and at the same time a huge wave of shame swept over me. I’d always known how powerful my longing for Mother was, yet I’d never considered that Father was going through the same thing, or, and it seemed impossible knowing the depth of my own feelings of loss, his pain was perhaps even more raw and jagged. He’d loved her longer and knew her much better than I could have in the five years she was with me.

Father recovered, saying, “I didn’t know if I wanted Mother O’Toole to be anywhere near you. But I did need help. Even though I was destroyed, I reasoned that since your grandmother’s fear hadn’t poisoned your mother, there was an excellent chance it wouldn’t poison you either.

“You, Alvin, are the proof I was right. You, my beloved son, are the evidence that the human spirit is strong and resilient, that given a chance, without interference from so many of the indignities life pours upon us, our spirits want to soar. Want to love.

“Yes, for whatever the reasons, sometimes, as in Mother O’Toole’s case, the spirit has cringed in the face of the horrors that have gnawed at it. It has slowly folded in upon itself, waging an unending war, fighting demons real and imagined, turning into exactly what it is that has so horribly scarred it, condensing and strengthening and dishing out the same hatred that it has experienced. These things happen.

“But some of the time, son, the opposite happens and we end up with Alvin Stockard. We are surprised and gladdened to look up and after thirteen years we have you.

“Someone who is kind, and loving and gentle.

“Someone who is proof that, though strong, hatred cannot endure.

“Someone who is not only my strength, but who is the hope for the future. The hope and the evidence that the Grandmother O’Tooles of the world can be overcome.”

“Oh, Father.”

It was childish of me and probably quite embarrassing for Father, but I left my chair and sat in his lap.

Father wrapped his arms around me, touseled my hair, and kissed the top of my head.

The beat of his heart comforted me beyond measure.

“Alvin, I don’t know if she’s coming back. If she does, fine; if she doesn’t, that’s fine as well. But as I’ve told you, we must remember she gave birth to the best part of both of us. For that, we are in her debt.

“And perhaps you can see her in the way I’ve chosen to. I choose to believe she has grandly taken a bullet, Alvin, not so much for me but for you. I choose to believe that so much pain and fear and hatred have racked her tiny body that perhaps the universe has said, ‘Enough! It ends here,’ and has taken pity and has not exposed her children and her children’s children to quite as much.”

I love my father a great deal. I know he is a very wise, very intelligent man. However, I choose to believe he didn’t get to be this way on his own. I choose to believe much of what he’s passed on to me were lessons learned from my mother. I choose to believe I have two loving parents wrapped in one.

*  *  *

Later that night, there was a knock at the front door.

“Evening, Judge. Telegram.”

Father took the telegram from Mr. Dones.

“Oh, dear, Alvin.”

I read the news.

“What should I do, Father?”

“I suppose you should go to the stables to borrow a horse, then get directly to bed so you can leave here by four thirty in the morning.”