Holly woke gradually from a dream of Jim.
They had been riding in the desert on one of those cool evenings where the light was like liquid warmth, and she woke with a smile on her face, which melted away as soon as she realized where she was.
She was propped up against some pillows, her leg heavily bandaged and tubes coming out of her arm. She felt like she’d been run over by a truck, but then the memory of what had actually happened came to her and the truck seemed like a better option.
Her whole body was in pain, both inner and outer. She looked around for an alarm button to press so she could call someone and maybe get a sleeping pill to send her back to her happy dream. That’s when she spotted the folded piece of paper on her nightstand with ‘Holly’ written on it.
She reached over, pressed the button then picked up the folded sheet of paper and settled back on her bed. The note was written on a scrap that had been torn from her medical notes.
‘Your husband was right,’ it said. ‘The lost Cassidy riches were exactly where he thought they would be. This page was torn from the Cassidy Bible. You can verify that by matching the ripped edge. The rest is written on your study wall.’
There was no signature, but she knew who it was from.
A second sheet of paper was folded into the note, much older than the first, and she carefully unfolded it now and saw old-fashioned writing on both sides of the page. She read the longer note first:
I have sinned, God knows I have sinned, but I pray to He who is merciful and just not to visit my sins upon those who carry my name by setting down this confession.
Before I found riches and built a church and made a town and a new name for myself I was another man with another family and another name. In my vanity I thought it was my family who was holding me back from all I imagined I could be so I abandoned them in order to seek my fortune, only to realize too late that there are no greater riches than the name you are born with and those who will carry it on into the future. By the time I realized this it was too late, I was already trapped by my new name and the fame of it and realized if I confessed the truth I risked the ruin of everything good I had wrought.
I did confess this grave sin once, to the priest who gave me this Bible, but he died and took my secret to the grave, as I now take it to mine.
The foundation I set up for abandoned families and the orphanage attached was my way of trying to find the family I had abandoned without risking the ruination of the Cassidy name. It was my penance too. I only pray that my lost family managed to thrive without me and that some time, in a more civilized future, the two halves of my broken past might be re-united and made whole again. For as the priest told me when he took my confession:
‘A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.’
Proverbs 22:1
JC
Holly finished reading just as the door opened and Dr Palmer walked in.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like I’ve been shot.’ She turned the page over to the dedication on the other side.
‘Apart from that, how are you feeling?’
‘Awesome I guess.’
The dedication was in two parts. The first recorded when the Bible had first been gifted to a Father Patrick O’Brien by the Bishop of Limerick in 1868. The second was written in a different hand, a spidery scrawl that hinted at age or infirmity. The date was May first, eighteen seventy-nine and the message said simply:
I hereby bequeath this Bible to James Coronado, travelling under the name Jack Cassidy.
Signed – Fr. Patrick O’Brien. MA
She read the names again then realized exactly what Solomon’s note had meant.
The rest is written on your study wall.
She pictured Jim’s family tree, traced back all the way to his oldest relative, the man he had been named after.
James Coronado. Or Jack Cassidy. They were the same.
He had spent his life idolizing the Cassidys, not realizing he had been one all along.
She looked up, aware that Dr Palmer had been speaking to her. ‘Did you hear anything I just said?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I was a little …’
‘Inability to concentrate can be one of the side-effects of hormonal imbalance, along with nausea and a whole bunch of other delights.’
Holly shook her head, confused. ‘What are you talking about? What’s wrong with me?’
Palmer smiled. ‘You really didn’t hear a thing I said, did you? There’s nothing wrong, Mrs Coronado, nothing at all. You’re pregnant.’