CHAPTER TEN
Whatever is in your life
right now is taking life from you.
—MAEVE MAHONEY TO KARA LARSON
It was December 22 when the plane hovered in the sky with the miracle of flight that Charlotte did not want to spend too long thinking about. She settled back into her seat and flipped through the movie choices. None sounded appealing. It was an all-night flight, and she knew she should sleep; they’d land in Ireland at six in the morning and have a full day ahead, but her thoughts and mind spun around themselves like tangled threads that had become knotted and useless.
Kara and Jack were two rows over, and both appeared to be asleep. Isabelle and Hank were five rows ahead, and she couldn’t see them. Porter and Rosie were in first class, and then there was the empty seat next to Charlotte—a visual reminder of an unseen reality that Jimmy was gone from her. She had decided on that morning of the newspaper to focus only on Kara’s wedding, on her best friend’s joy. She would not think about or talk to Jimmy Sullivan, and she had mostly kept this vow until now, when the missing of him crowded in on her as if a large, obese man sat in the seat next to her, shoving her into the window.
Jimmy had left numerous messages. First he tried explaining, then apologizing, and then the last one was angry. Charlotte had never heard him use that tone of voice before that message, and she’d erased both the message and the memory of the exact words. He’d spoken of her not understanding, of his need to help the band, of his own career.
She now reached into her purse and pulled out the shell that Kara had thrown at her that afternoon Jimmy had announced this tour. She’d believed then—believed in love surviving a music tour, in a fairy tale obviously. Her finger ran across the concave surface worn smooth by the sea, her sadness settling like smoke into the curve of nature’s pure white shell.
Outside the plane’s window, the sunset spread like ribbons across the line between cloud and universe. Her eyes closed and her thoughts quieted, which is exactly what a sunset can do to a mind—quiet it. She felt a presence next to her body, and she imagined, for that moment between sleep and awake, that moment between knowing and believing, that Jimmy was with her. She opened her eyes to see Kara.
“Did I wake you?” Kara asked.
“No, I think I just was sort of half asleep. For a millisecond I thought you were Jimmy. That he was really here.”
“I’m sorry,” Kara said. “I looked over at the empty seat, and my heart hurt.”
“No. None of that from you,” Charlotte said. “This is your wedding. Your time. I am fine.”
“You’re always fine. I know that, but you’re allowed to be sad and fine, doncha think?”
Charlotte ran her finger across the glass window. “Look at that sunset. It lasts longer up here, doesn’t it?”
“Huh?” Kara leaned closer to the window.
“The sunset lasts longer up above the clouds. I wonder why. I mean, at home if you turn around or get distracted, you miss the entire beauty, as if it never happened, as if the sun is there and then gone. But not up here. Wow, the sunset has been settling into the clouds for over an hour, lingering there like it’s a party it doesn’t want to leave.”
“You,” Kara said, “are adorable.”
“I thought it was so beautiful. You know, this sweet attraction that would change everything.”
“Are we still talking about the sunset?” Kara asked.
Charlotte turned to her friend. “No.” She smiled sadly. “I mean, isn’t that what love is supposed to do? Change everything?”
“I guess in a way it did. In a way his love for you did change everything. He wouldn’t have written the song . . . if he hadn’t loved. He’s just lost sight of it. That’s all, Charlotte. He’s lost sight.”
“No, you don’t lose sight of love. Love isn’t a stickie you just carry around and put on the most convenient place. It is or it isn’t.”
“Of course you can lose sight. Look at Jack and me. I was blind to it until I wasn’t.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because he didn’t choose to leave.” Charlotte shrugged. “Jimmy made his choice. He did. There isn’t really a way to change that choice.”
“As Maeve would have said, ‘You must not demand proof to believe.’”
Charlotte turned back to the window, the sun now set, only night dominating the sky obliterating east from west, up from down. “It’s gone now.”
They both stared into the darkness; the sun on the other side of the earth where unseen forces were at work, forces Charlotte and Kara could not and did not see. As it should be. The calendar moved from December 22 to December 23 as they slept, and the plane moved across the sky to another land, another day, the minutes ticking backward, as Ireland was six hours ahead. Each minute more than a minute as time and day overlapped.
Jimmy glanced at his watch. It was ten at night on December 22 in Memphis, Tennessee; the band was hanging out for the last night together before everyone went their separate ways. He counted forward—it would be four in the morning for his brother, for Charlotte, in that plane. He should be on that plane, but he would not allow the regret to bounce against his fatigue; he dismissed it, as one would a bothersome child needing attention. He could not be apologetic about making a good choice for himself, and ultimately for his brother and their band.
Ellie sidled up next to him. “Okay, we’re gonna go hit Memphis. Blue suede shoes. Elvis. You in?”
Jimmy smiled at Ellie. “No, not tonight. Sleep tonight.”
She shrugged and turned to the crew. “He’s too good for us now,” she said, and her words held no mirth or laughter.
“No,” Jimmy said, “that’s not it. You know that’s not it. You guys are amazing. I just have got to finally lie down.”
“You can sleep when you’re dead,” a crew member called out, throwing a football toward Jimmy.
Jimmy dove for the ball, caught it, and laughed. “Good point. Let’s go.”
There was something about belonging that always captured Jimmy’s heart—belonging to a family or a group or a person at all, really. When someone grows up trying to find their place in a world where there is no place, a soul can sometimes be fooled into believing that it’s found a home when really it’s merely found a soft area to land that isn’t theirs at all. At all.
He grabbed his jacket and followed the group. The tour cities had blurred together, all of them with auditoriums and girls and Christmas carols and Santa hats and lights. He wanted to call Charlotte. It was driving him crazy that she wouldn’t speak to him. Why wouldn’t she just let him explain? He’d told Jack to please pass on the reasons, to please tell Charlotte that of course he still loved her and this decision had nothing to do with how much he did or didn’t love her. But even Jack didn’t sound convinced.
The group emerged into the dark, cold night, and Jimmy glanced up at the sky where somewhere far away Charlotte slept in a plane flying toward Ireland. He slipped his hand into his pocket and felt the box that held the ring he’d planned on giving her on Christmas Day. He’d offer it to her the minute he saw her; Christmas was just a day on the calendar, not one more or less than any other day.
This is what he told himself.
Trays up, seats in an upright position, the plane began its descent into Shannon, Ireland, and the earth drew closer, as if a camera lens were pulled in tighter and tighter, slowly revealing the greenest land Charlotte had ever seen. Stone walls spread like creeks and rivers, like snakes through the land, dividing it into puzzle pieces of brilliant green so lush Charlotte thought the color must have a different name, a name larger and more expansive than simply “green.” She touched her fingers to the window as if she could draw the lushness into her soul. If there were a land that could heal a heart, it must and could be this piece of earth below the plane.
The runway rose up, or so it seemed, and the plane skidded to a halt. Passengers stretched and gathered their belongings. Charlotte glanced at her watch: 6:10 a.m. Midnight at home.
No, she thought. She would no longer compare there to here. Here, it was a new day. The eve of Christmas Eve.
Kara and Jack waved from their seats, and Charlotte waved back, smiled. Her best friend’s wedding. This, she reminded herself, was what to focus on and about. Kara’s wedding.
Jimmy sat back in the bar booth, surrounded by the crew, and glanced at his watch. The plane would be landing; they’d all be in Ireland now. He vaguely wondered if anyone had taken his seat, if Charlotte sat with a stranger or alone. It was his last night with the Christmas tour. Tomorrow everyone would go their separate ways, and he alone would fly to New York City for the big event.
Jimmy leaned back and tilted his head. The flashing multicolored Christmas lights were giving him a headache. An itchy, threadbare wreath behind his head scratched his neck. He grabbed at the irritating wreath, threw it onto the bench behind him.
Ellie looked over at the discarded fake greenery and then back at him. “So have your parents ever seen you play or sing?” She shrugged. “I’m just asking. Mine never have. They think it’s a waste of time.”
Jimmy looked at this wounded young girl. “My mom has a million times. But I don’t think my father even knows I sing. Or play. Or am alive.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Jimmy shook his head. “No big deal. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve thought about it.”
“Nothing like that is ever a long time ago.” She touched his arm. “Don’t you want? . . .”
Jimmy held up his hand. “Listen, I don’t want anything that in any way has something to do with or about my dad. He’s long gone, and good riddance.”
Ellie picked up the discarded wreath and hung it back on the hook behind Jimmy’s head. “That’s why I’m out here on the road during the holidays. So much easier than being home, wherever home is.”
Jimmy lifted his glass of whiskey. “Exactly. Wherever home is.”
Damn all of it. Jimmy’s irritation turned to anger as quickly as a storm turns into a hurricane, building strength, gathering cloud upon cloud, rain upon rain, fury upon fury. Damn his dad and concerts and family expectations. Damn Charlotte and love and weddings. And seriously, damn Christmas. What a crock, believing that a single day or a single love or a single person could change anything.
When the bar closed, the band and crew walked through the streets of Memphis, bundled up and talking about going home in the morning.
Milton turned to Jimmy. “You, my friend, have a 6:00 a.m. flight to New York.”
“I know, I know, I know.” Jimmy exhaled. “I’m already packed.”
They filed onto the bus, and Jimmy walked back to his bunk, lay down on the hard mattress, and thought of his dad. Jimmy shoved the thought from his mind, yet it returned like thunder in a storm that seemed far off, but was in the backyard. Why, Jimmy wondered, was he thinking about his dad now? He truly didn’t care about the old drunk man.
So, if he didn’t care about the old man, why was he thinking about him, wondering if he knew about the Unknown Souls or their mother or Jack or anything at all? Through the years he’d often imagined his dad reading about the band or their success, yet Jimmy didn’t even know if his dad was alive, much less paying any attention to the whereabouts of his long-gone sons.
He’d imagined his dad reading an article and then calling, saying, “Wow, I’m so proud.” Or that Wagner was out in the audience, hiding yet weeping with pride at his boys’ talent. But these dreams and imaginings had stopped long ago. Now, if Jimmy did think of it, he hoped his dad experienced regret and sadness. The need, Jimmy thought, for his dad’s approval was long gone. Jimmy didn’t believe he needed a man he didn’t know to be proud of him.
But tonight, with Jack in Ireland, Jimmy felt the old and ancient need to have his dad know and be proud. What Jimmy didn’t understand was that there is this need in a man—always present—for a dad’s approval. Yet this need is unnecessary because the One that made the man already approves of the man. And, yes, even loves him. Oh, so much loves him.
Jimmy lay back on the cot and closed his eyes. What was he doing this for? This trip to New York City, this distance from the woman he loved, from his brother’s wedding?
Approval.
He shook his head against the pillow. No way. It couldn’t be. He was doing this for the band, for all of them. Not for his dad. That was ridiculous. He closed his eyes against the stupid thought and fell into the darkest sleep he’d ever had, a sleep that wasn’t really a sleep but a deadness that threatened to overtake his heart.
Their baggage came out in sporadic shifts, and the laughing group of Kara, Jack, Charlotte, Porter and Rosie, and Isabelle and Hank counted the bags until they were sure they had everything. Squinting into the morning, they emerged from the airport and into a sun that seemed filtered and washed in green light.
“Ireland,” Charlotte said.
Kara lifted her face to the biting wind. “Wow, huh?”
“I thought it was supposed to be all gloomy and dark here in the winter,” Charlotte said.
The group raised their eyes to the clearest sky. “It is freezing, though.” Jack pulled his scarf tighter. “Okay, let’s go find the rental car place. I rented a van for all of us.”
After deciphering the signs and tumbling aboard a bus, they emerged at the rental car booth and then followed Jack to the van. When they saw the vehicle, the laughter was simultaneous and free. The van was squat, square, and small enough to fit in the back of Porter’s pickup truck at home in South Carolina. There was just no way they were all going to fit into that one car with all the luggage.
“This,” Jack said, “is what they call a van? We’re going to need another car.”
Isabelle sat on her suitcase. “No way I’m driving. I can barely drive down the right side of the road, much less the left side. Plus, I heard these are the skinniest, windiest roads in the world. I’ll kill someone.”
Jack laughed. “I wouldn’t let you drive. But someone is going to have to besides me. This is the largest car they have, and there is no way we’re going to fit.”
Mr. Larson coughed. “I know it should be me, but I’ve never driven on the wrong side of the road.”
“Dad?” Kara poked at him. “Except that time in Charles-ton when you went down a one-way street and almost killed all of us.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Larson said. “But I guess I can try.”
“It’ll be an adventure,” Charlotte said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Mr. Larson dropped his briefcase and exhaled. “I’ll be right back.”
The streets wound through the stone-dotted landscape an hour and a half north of the Shannon Airport and into Galway. Charlotte rode with Kara and Jack, her feet crammed underneath the seat to catch the meager heat coming from the floor vents. Together they tried to pronounce every sign they passed: Cappafean and Garheeny More, Ardrahan and Kilcolgan. The ground appeared as if green lumps of earth had pushed their way through dirt and stone, proving their resilience against a ragged landscape like none Charlotte had ever seen. The stones and rocks echoing permanence born in another time, a time so ancient that the person who had set these stones into walls could not have imagined cars or the people in them. A time long gone. Yes, Charlotte thought, it all passes: love, joy, sadness. It is there, and then it is gone, leaving behind only the echo.
She wiped at her eyes, forced her thoughts to happier things. “Pictures didn’t catch this,” she said from the backseat.
Jack slammed on the brakes. “Hold on!” he hollered, suitcases flying forward, the car skidding sideways. In front of them two stray sheep stood in the middle of the road, staring at them as if the car were the thing that didn’t belong, as if the car drove onto their field.
Charlotte burst out laughing. “This is crazy. They just stand in the middle of the road and expect to not get hit.”
“Yeah.” Kara rolled down her window. “They’re looking at us like we’re the crazy ones.” She waved her hand out the window. “Shoo!” she hollered.
“‘Shoo’?” Jack’s words were wrapped in laughter. “Did you just yell ‘shoo’ at the sheep?”
“I did,” Kara said and stuck her head back in the window. “You got a better plan?”
Jack pressed his hand on the steering wheel, and a tinny, small noise erupted from the car, a honk that really wasn’t a honk at all, but an irritating noise. Charlotte and Kara looked at one another in that way that friends do and then burst into laughter that could not have been stopped by God himself.
Jack stared at them and shook his head. “You think this is funny?”
Kara wiped at tears. “That is the absolute most pitiful honk I have ever heard. My ‘shoo’ scared them more than that.”
A squeal of tire came from behind them, and they all swiveled to see Mr. Larson slam on his brakes and just miss hitting them. Everyone piled out of the cars, laughing.
Kara walked toward the side of the road, waving at the sheep to follow her, which of course they didn’t. “Oh . . . ,” she said and turned to the group. “Come here.” Her voice held reverence as if she’d seen an angel or apparition. And in a way she had.
Then they all saw it; they finally saw it. Galway Bay. The place and view Kara’s heart had seen only in imagination, the place she believed brought Jack back to her, the bay where she believed Maeve Mahoney now lived in spirit.
“Oh!” Kara cried out, grabbing Jack’s elbow.
Jack glanced to the left, and his breath was also taken away. Only a man with a dead heart would not lose his very breath at this sight. Together the group gathered at the cliff’s edge, high above the rocks and waves, floating above the sway of the bay.
The late-morning sunlight scattered across the waves in a shifting pattern of the earth’s motion, an intricate ballet. Boats bobbed like toys in the powerful force, and water slammed and scattered against the cliffs, and then gently, impossibly, back into the sea that had just hurled it into the rocks, as if the water was destined to return to the bay only to be flung again. Like love, Charlotte thought. Going back for more to be tossed onto the rocks again.
Kara took Jack’s hand. “How is it possible that it is more beautiful than I imagined?”
He didn’t answer because he didn’t have an answer. He kissed Kara right there overlooking the cliffs. “God, I love you, Kara. I do so love you. If it took a legend from this place to bring you to me, I will love it also.”
Kara pushed her face into Jack’s sweater and let the tears melt into the wool of his scarf. “I love you.”
He leaned down to whisper, so as not to hurt Charlotte’s feelings, “I wish Jimmy were here.”
She lifted her face and stood on her toes to whisper in his ear, “I know. You didn’t have to say it; I know.” She kissed the edge of his ear.
Porter looked at his daughter. “Weird how the sheep stopped us right here, right at the first view of the bay.”
Kara laughed. “Yeah, you’d think Maeve Mahoney had something to do with it, wouldn’t you?”
Isabelle hollered into the wind, “Now, I have to admit this is one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen, present company included, but I’m freezing my arse off here! Can we see this view from inside a hotel with a warm drink?”
“‘Arse’?” Hank asked. “Who says ‘arse’?”
Isabelle shrugged and pulled her scarf around her head and face. “When in Ireland, speak as the Irish.”
“Okay,” Hank said as they all ran back to the cars. “The first Irish guy I meet, I’m asking him if they say ‘arse.’ Twenty dollars they do not say ‘arse.’”
Laughter, holy laughter if I do say so myself, rolled across the bay as they all climbed into their cars and drove up Dublin Street and into Claddagh Village. The village of the myth, the village of Maeve Mahoney, the village where Jack would finally wed Kara Larson.
They stood in front of the Dominican church, staring up at the stone structure as if it were in a movie, or a photograph, something not real.
Kara squeezed Charlotte’s hand. “This is it.”
Charlotte nodded.
Mr. Larson spoke first. “So this is the church Maeve told you about?”
The frigid wind blew in off the bay behind the crowd, but sometimes the sight in front of your eyes can take your mind off your body. This very church had been here for more than five hundred years. It is a place we call St. Mary on the Hill, a place of the Claddagh Dominicans. Built of Galway granite, this building is, to many, the presence of God in the village, more, oh, how much more, than so many tons of granite and stone. The sacred building stands broad and proud, light gazing out from her tall windows and side doors. Her reflection shines off the water as if there is a church beneath the church, a holy place on which the holy place rests. At the top of the church there is a statue of Mary tucked into a marble enclave, a home of sorts. Mary stares out over the bay and everyone who enters the front door of her church. But there is another Mary, one we call “Our Lady,” and she is inside the church.
Kara turned to her friends, to her dad. “This is it. And it’s more beautiful, like everything else here, than I imagined. This is where they do the blessing of the bay she told me about. Every year, on a Sunday in mid-August, the entire town comes to the Claddagh pier here for the blessing of the bay and its fishermen. The priest reads and sprinkles holy water. There is this beautiful scene. I can almost see it from the story Maeve told me. The brown sails, the priest, the hymns.”
“Can you tell us the story inside?” Isabelle asked. “I’m freezing.”
“We’re meeting a nun tomorrow afternoon for the rehearsal, but if y’all want to go in now . . . ”
Isabelle stood at the double wooden doors, opened them, and swept her hand toward the inside. “Let’s go. It’s warm in here.”
The church doors opened into a foyer, an aisle leading to ornate arched stained-glass windows, where Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Dominic looked out over the church with an adoring gaze. Arched columns and ornate mosaics lined the sides of the church, running alongside the pews like children keeping tight to their parents. But it was the wooden baroque statue that caused the group to stop, as if Mary herself had reached out and grabbed them.
“This statue,” Kara said as she pointed to a wooden statue of Mary, “was in Maeve’s story. I can’t believe I’m finally looking at it. In a way I’m stunned it’s real. That it’s here. It’s like waking up and finding part of your dream sitting in your bedroom.” Kara laughed, shook her head.
“What part of her story?” Charlotte asked, stepping forward, fascinated by this wooden statue in a way she didn’t yet understand.
“Well, she is called Our Lady of Galway. Maeve told me the Spanish priests brought her back from exile, along with the first rosaries. She was cleaned in Dublin and brought back here with this huge parade and celebration. Maeve was in the procession that brought the statue to the church; she was with the boy she loved—Richard, who her story was all about. It was the next morning that he was taken from the village. Maeve said she prayed to this Mary to bring him back safely. I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland wondering what’s real and what’s not.”
“Hey,” Jack said, “I’m real. Back to me, okay?” His voice held that sweet laughter Kara had loved since memory began.
She looked at him. “Sometimes I’m not even sure that’s true or real.”
Mr. Larson coughed. “Well, if none of this is real, then I don’t have to pay for it, right?”
Kara smiled and then pointed to the glittering mosaic behind the statue. “That is the blessing of the bay. She watches over that also.”
The group walked away and toward the sacristy, but Charlotte stood to stare at the Mary statue, at Our Lady of Galway, an ornately carved wooden statue of Mary holding her son, cradling baby Jesus in the crook of her left arm. Set into the wooden base were three carved angels’ faces peaking out from under Mary’s dress, which billowed as if a strong wind blew in off the bay. Her eyes stared out, yet seemed to slightly glance down toward the left, toward her son, but also toward the world, toward Charlotte. Baby Jesus’s face was placid and somehow simultaneously ancient and innocent; he held out his right hand as if waving or blessing or maybe even stopping someone from coming near. Charlotte would like to believe he was blessing anyone or anything that passed. A long mother-of-pearl rosary hung from Mary’s fingers, which were curled in a gesture so delicate, it was as if she held the most fragile thing in the world. From the bottom of the rosary chain, an ornate cross dropped like a tear in front of the angels’ faces.
Charlotte stepped back. “So, what do you think about what we’ve all done about your son’s birthday? I bet you have a thing or two to say about it, don’t you?”
Mary, of course, didn’t answer but gazed out, holding tight to her son as if to say, “I only care about him. I love him.”
Charlotte imagined and, yes, almost heard those words, so much so that she answered. “Yep, I know how that feels—to love. Not like that, maybe, but love, yes.” She glanced behind her to make sure no one else heard her, and then she whispered to Mary, “I know you’re busy being a mom and all, and that this is a crazy time of year for you, but if you have any influence over things, could you bring Jimmy to his senses? Let him know that this birthday, this birthday of your son’s, is about so much more than fame and parties. Please let him know it’s about love. And just that. Just love.”
Charlotte reached into her purse and set the small gray-white shell, which Kara had given her that day at the beach when Jimmy had told them all about the Christmas tour, at the base of the statue, right next to the angels’ placid faces.
Mary appeared as if she didn’t care, but you never know who’s listening, do you?
