Chapter 33

Inside the front door of the white clapboard house was a large-open plan, L-shaped room. Several old-fashioned armchairs covered with large dustcloths sat idly in front of an empty brick fireplace and a tall china cabinet, full of unused, dusty pottery stood just inside the front door of the chilly room. To the left of the open space, a long, narrow, country-style dining table sat in front of an old- fashioned row of worn kitchen cupboards. A fine film of dust completely covered the wooden kitchen table and the creaky oak floor beneath it.

“We don’t live here as you can plainly see,” Nella explained as she walked about the room, pulling the dust sheets off as she went. “We came up here before dawn, planning to have the place looking like home before you got here.”

She then set about dusting the table and the chairs around it.

Brendan watched as Jonathan wandered around, peering into all three of the small rooms that led off the open area.

“Our house is close by but Cassie thought you’d prefer to meet here,” Nellasaid.

Cassie Thomas felt her way around the room and sat on a wooden chair at the table.

“You cold, Cass?” Nella shouted from the other side of the room.

Cassie noddedand Nella rushed to light a match under the set fire.

“You all sit,” Nella ordered.

Slowly, they each took a seat at the long wooden table.

“I’ll get breakfast while you all catch up,” Nella said.“Can’t say I’m up to more crying today anyway!” She moved away from the group and set about cooking breakfast.

“Jonathan!” Brendan called as his friend wandered around the open-plan area, touching things as he went and shaking his head slowly. He looked up.“Come and sit down.”

When the group were all seated, Nella placed a hot pot of coffee that she had made earlier on the table and poured a cup for each of the visitors. They watched as she lovingly placed Cassie’s hands around the steaming cup to ensure her lifelong friend knew exactly where the hot liquid was situated on the table in front of her.

“Where do you live, Cassie?” Brendan asked.

“We built a house about a hundredfeet from this one, behind those very trees out front. It gets more light there anyway and, when I came back here, I didn’t want to live in this house with all those memories.”

Brendan listened to how different her accent was from her brother’s. Although Cassie Thomas spoke very slowly, she did not have the same drawl as Jonathan. Vowels seemed to roll off her tongue with velvety smoothness and her consonants were spoken crisply, each syllable accentuated by her soft, silky voice. He wondered if Jonathan felt self-conscious about hissouthern accent and how he might explain this to his sister.

“You went away?”Brendan asked.He glanced at Jonathan who sat staring at his sister as though she was a mirage, a dream that he might at any point wake from and find that she had disappeared.

“What happened to Daddy?” Jonathan asked, unable to wait any longer.

Cassie Thomas looked sadly in the direction of her brother who was seated beside her. “I need to tell you everything that went before that, so you’ll understand, Jonathan,” she said.

“Can you still see shadows?” Jonathan asked.

Cassie smiled.“Yes, if it’s bright enough. What do you look like?”

She held out her hand and he took it. He placed her long narrow fingers over his face and she moved them across his visage and towards his hairline. Nella stopped her noisy whisking and put her bowl down. She came to where Jonathan was sitting and looked him up and down like he was a prize bull.

“He’s the living image of your daddy, Cass. He still has that mop of beautiful white hair and those big blue eyes. Face as pale as the moon though, Lord help us. Looks like a ghost. We’ll have to see to that. He’s real tall and skinny and, Lord, dressed in old-fashioned clothes like he bought them in a charity shop. Another thing to see to, as if I didn’t have enough for doing. And, goodness,” she began to laugh, “he’s still got that scar where I sewed his head myself hoping his daddy wouldn’t find out about the tree that hit him!”

Cassie laughed.

“I remember that.You sewed it?” Jonathan asked.

“I got a needle and thread from my mama’s basket. I didn’t know anything about boiling the needle or anything. I got Cassie to hold onto you while I sewed it quick as I could. Boy, did you yell! You’d think I was killing you with the way you screamed. Melibea came looking to see what the fuss was about and all hell broke loose. Your daddy was furious with me. My own daddy, he smacked my backsidehard for that, said it could have cost him his job at the orchard.” She was shaking her head and laughing at the memory. “Course, your daddy took you to town and had the doctor sew it up properly. It got infected. You had to take antibiotics. Guess that was my fault.”

Jonathan laughed. “I knew that was real. I knew that tree falling on me was real!” He glanced at Eileen and she smiled at him. There were tears in her eyes, tears of happiness for him. Then he turned back to Cassie. “What happened to Daddy?” he asked again.

Cassie sighed and put her cup down on the table in front of her.

“I better start by telling all of you about the morning Jonathan disappeared when I was six years old.”

Pilar suddenly interrupted.

“Jonathan, are you sure you are ready for this?” she asked. She knew from herpsychiatric training that such sudden information could be too much for someone as fragile as Jonathan to cope with.

Jonathan looked warmly at the woman who had cared so much for him. Not only in that awful psychiatric hospital but at the shelter.

“I’m fine, Pilar,” he said. “I need to know.”

Cassie took a deep breath.

“I woke early that morning when Melibea took Jonathan away. I heard her walking around the landing outside my room. My daddy always said I’d hear a pin drop. He said he didn’t need a gander around here when he had me. I walked out onto the landing and she was there. I could smell her perfume. It was lavender. I remember she used to make it herself from some that was growing in a small patch at the back of the garden. I couldn’t see any light so I knew it was still way before dawn and I wondered where she could be going at that hour. She told me she was only going downstairs to the bathroom and that I should go back to bed so I did, but a few moments later I heard her talking to Jonathan so I got back up. She told me they were going to watch the sunrise but I told her it was at least an hour ’til dawn, that’s how dark it was. She used to sometimes take me with her but this time she said, ‘Cassie, you’ll slow me down so you go on now.’ Course, she said it in Spanish. She hardly spoke any English. Daddy liked the fact that we spoke both languages fluently.”

Cassie quietened and her face clouded over. She ran her fingers gently up and down her brother’s hand.

“I always felt guilty that I didn’t stop her, that I didn’t yell for Daddy but I thought she was really going to that clearing. I didn’t know that she would never be coming back or that it would be the last time I would see you. I carried that guilt around with me for years.”

“You weren’t to know,” Jonathan replied.

Cassie shook her head and continued.

“I went back to bed and the next sound I heard was Daddy shouting down the telephone to my grandfather. He kept saying ‘She’s gone, William! She’s gone and she’s taken Jonathan with her!’ Granddaddy arrived at the house with lots of other men. Mama’s younger sister Prudence and her fiancé Jan arrived later on. We rarely saw Prudence but I remember they had a brand-new car that sounded so smooth as it came up the driveway. Anyway, they all sat in Daddy’s tiny study talking. Nella’s mama arrived over and took me to her house. I guess Daddy asked her to take me away from all theupset – and, with Melibea gone, he didn’t have anyone to care for me. The next day I went back to the house with Nella to get some clean clothes and I remember Daddy arguing with Granddaddy in this very room. I didn’t know what it was about until years later but Daddy kept shouting that granddad shouldn’t have hung up. He was crying and, though Daddy was a soft man, I had never heard him cry before. After that, I was sent to stay with Nella’s family until whatever was going on passed over.”

Brendan nodded as the story began to fit in with what his father had told him. He could imagine the sort of man William Chapman was. Unyielding, stubborn and arrogant, which whenmatched with Rafael’s Martinez’ mean-heartedness was a recipe for disaster.

“I didn’t come back to the house for weeks. I knew it was something to do with Jonathan and at night Nella’s family prayed for him so I knew something bad had happened. Then one day, Daddy sent for me. When I got home, he was sitting at the kitchen table with Jonathan’s little yellow jacket in his hand. Granddaddy was sitting by the fire, sobbing into his whiskey. Daddy grabbed me and held me so tight that he hurt me. I knew Jonathan was dead because Daddy was always real careful about suddenly touching me and giving me a fright. He always gently touched my shoulders and then drew me to him slowly. You remembered that, didn’t you, Jonathan, when you saw me on the porch? You did exactly what Daddy used to do.”

“Yes, I did,” he said.

She blew out and shook her head.“Daddy told me it was a road accident. Guess that’s the story Granddad and his campaign people came up with to save face. He said there’d be no funeral but that we’d put a stone up there on the clearing for you. I didn’t know the truth until I came back here. I was eighteen then.”

“Where did you go in the meantime?” Eileen asked quietly from her seat at the far end of the table.

“I’ll get to that,” she said softly. “But, first, Jonathan needs to know that Daddy fell to pieces when he knew he was lost to us. He began to spend his days writing in his study all day and drinking all night. That’s when he wrote the book Lost. It made him famous which wasn’t something he was looking for. It also made him rich and money was never something Daddy had much interest in. I guess that’s why Momma’s family never really took to him. He liked a simple life and, as far as I remember, Momma did too. It was ironic how things turned out for him with all that money and fame. All he really wanted was for you to return to us but he thought you were dead so he wrote that book as a tribute to you, to tell you how much you had meant to him. It was written in the style of a letter from a father to his son and it was really very sad to listen to when Nella read it to me. He even ended the book with the writer finding his little boy and bringing him home. It doesn’t really bear any resemblance to what really happened here, but I guess he was trying to do something. He felt completely powerless so he channelled all his energy into writing.”

Jonathan nodded sadly and looked at the floor.

Pilar watched his reactions carefully, ready to stop Cassie if she felt Jonathan was unable to hear any more. She looked intently into his face. He smiled to reassure her but inside, inside his heart was beating so fast he was surprised the tiny Hispanic woman couldn’t hear it.

Brendan leant forward and patted his friend’s knee.

“What happened next, the morning your daddy sent for you?” he asked.

“Well, when Daddy finally let go of his grip on me, he looked at Granddaddy who was sitting in the corner of this room by the fire, weeping into his handkerchief.Something about him crying made daddy snap. He just completely lost control. He ran over to Granddaddy and began to shout. He told him it was too late for crying. He said it was his fault, blamed him for Jonathan’s death – which I couldn’t understand at the time. He must have got a hold ofGranddaddy up because I heard some men shouting for him to let go. I could hear furniture smashing and chairs falling and then Daddy pushing open the screen door and a loud thud on the porch. There was shouting, mostly from Granddaddy’s campaign people. Those men seemed to go everywhere with him. I heard Daddy say ‘Don’t you ever come back here!’ so I knew then that he had thrown Granddaddy out onto the dirt. He never did come back here, never set foot inside this house again.”

“What happened then?” Brendan asked.

Cassie took a deep breath and shook her head. Nella, who had finished preparing the breakfast, came to the table and placed hot plates of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of everyone. She walked back to the tiny kitchen area and brought another pot of coffee back, placed it squarely on the table and sat on the other side of Cassie.

“Pennsylvania didn’t have anti-miscegenation laws like several other states that still prohibited whites from marrying blacks or Hispanics or Native Americans. Even so, Granddaddy had plans to get elected to Washington and he didn’t want any family members of his breaking the laws of other states.”

Nella huffed in disgust. “Who did he think he was?” she said.

Cassie smiled in the direction of her acerbic friend. “I think my daddy knew that there was no way he could marry Melibea. He wanted to keep the peace with Momma’s family. He was a good man but he was weak so even if he’d known she was expecting his baby, he wouldn’t have gone against Granddaddy. It wasn’t until after she was pulled from the river that Granddaddy told him that an autopsy found she was pregnant. They rowed about it. Granddaddy told him he had let the family down and had sullied the memory of his daughter. I don’t know why Melibea hadn’t told Daddy she was pregnant and now we’ll never know. The only reason Daddy got to know what happened to her and to Jonathan was the fact that Jonathan’s coat was found on her body and, even then, Granddaddy paid off his cronies to keep her identity secret so it wouldn’t affect his campaign.”

Cassie sighed and leant towards her brother.

“This will be real hard for you, Jonathan, but you have to understand that Daddy was under an awful lot of stress.”

Pilar tensed up and wrapped her hands so tightly around her coffee cup that she thought it would smash in her hands. Eileen could feel perspiration bead on her forehead. She longed to go to Jonathan and hold him while he heard what she assumed was going to be the worst part of Cassie’s story.

Brendan looked at the ground and tensed. Apart from Nella, he was the only other person in the room who knew exactly what Cassie Thomas was going to say next.

“A couple of years before Jonathan was taken, the Supreme Court ruled that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. Slowly, other states followed with only the southern states still condemning the practice although they couldn’t actually stop intermarriage. Attitudes were gradually changing. The year after Jonathan disappeared, a very rich and influential neighbour here married a Native American woman. Granddaddy was invited to the ceremony and, because this neighbour held a lot of power, he kept his views to himself and went to the wedding. Daddy heard about it and he . . . he was drinking heavily. He had finished the book and didn’t even care about the success he’d had. He had nothing to do all day except brood, even left his beloved orchard to Nella’s father’s care. Didn’t come out to work, didn’t do anything except sit in the tiny room behind us and stare at your photograph, Jonathan.”

Cassie Thomas’s lip trembled but she held back the tears in her deep brown eyes.

“He went to where the wedding was being held on the man’s property . . . with a shotgun. I’ve heard people around here say that he walked right into the huge marquee where Granddaddy was seated pride of place in his white linen suit with his ivory walking cane. Daddy walked up to him. He didn’t say a word, just stared at him for a moment and then he . . . he shot Granddaddy at close range. Almost emptied the whole round into him. People just stood there staring. No one tried to stop him.People later said you could have heard a pin drop and then he just walked away and walked all the way down to the creek at the bottom of our property here. Then . . .” she rubbed her brother’s hand, “then he . . . he shot himself. I’m sorry to have to tell you all this, Jonathan, but I think Daddy did it for you because he realised your death and Melibea’s for that matter had been for nothing.”

Jonathan sat open-mouthed on the chair beside his sister. His lips moved slightly.

“He loved me,” he said.

“He did . . . with all his heart. He couldn’t live on after you were gone. Not even for me. It was forty-two years ago now. We put his name on the stone he set up for you on the mountain.”

Cassie ran her hands up Jonathan’s arms and pulled him to her.

“He would have loved to have seen this day.”

“I never got to tell him, Cassie. I wanted to tell him I remembered him, that I never forgot. I wanted to say I waited for him, that I knew he was looking for me. I’m never going to get to say those things to him now.”

Jonathan began to sob into his sister’s hair. She gently moved him from her and felt his face, wiping his tears and shushing him as she must have done when they were children.

“I’m sure he knows, Jonathan. I’m sure he’s watching us here together and that he has peace knowing that you’ve finally come home to us.”

Brendan felt a lump in his throat as he watched his friend try to regain his composure. He could see the turmoil his friend’s mind was in and wanted to put his arms around him and protect him from the awful truth.

“What happened to you then, Cassie?” he asked, trying to take the focus off his friend.

She sighed.“Until the funeral was over, I slept at Nella’s house. Daddy wrote a will shortly before he died and he said if anything happened to him, I was to live with Nella’s parents right here. It was the only home I’d known.”

“But that didn’t happen?” Brendan asked.

Cassie shook her head.“Momma’s only sister, Prudence, drove back over from New York with her fiancé. She said there was no way I was living with a black family and bringing further disgrace on their good family name. She packed up all my belongings and put them into her new car and then drove me away.”

Cassie’s eyes glazed over and she shook her head sadly.

“I thought she was taking me to live with her in New York and the whole way there in that open-topped car, I wondered how I’d get used to a noisy place like New York city. I remember Nella running after the car the whole way down to the main road. She yelled and yelled, shouting about how she’d come to New York and get me when I was of age.”

Cassie began to cry. Nella leant over and rubbed her friend’s hand.

“And I did, didn’t I?” she said.

“Yes, yes, you did.”

“Course she wasn’t taking me to her home. Her and her fiancé drove me to a place just outside Philadelphia which was an orphanage for girls. It was run by Catholics which I knew was a way of letting me know how little I meant to Momma’s family because Granddaddy hated Catholics. As a matter of fact, he hated anyone that wasn’t rich, white and Baptist. Also, I don’t think they wanted word getting out in their own community about how badly they had treated their own niece. I remember us driving into the gates of St Jude’s Hall. I could feel how tall and dark the building was because it blocked out the sun from my face. There was a cattle grid or something that made a rumbling sound as you drove into the gates. I never heard that sound again until I was eighteen years old.”

“They never came back for you?” asked Brendan.

Cassie shook her head. “No, but I heard about them from time to time. My aunt was quite a society lady. She married her fiancé once he graduated from medical school, bought a big house in New York and forgot that I ever existed. My first day at the orphanage, I remember the manager telling me that they couldn’t cater for blind girls and that they had no idea how to teach me. She told me that there was a private school for blind childrenonly a few short miles away. All that money my granddaddy had and the money my daddy had left me and my aunt wouldn’t spend a little of it by paying for a school where I could get an education. It wasn’t so bad though. I made friends there and I got by. They eventually got someoneto teach me Braille so I could read.”

“What happened then?” Eileenasked.

“I had a lovely teacher there, a nun. She wrote to Nella for me, telling her where I was and, after that, every single week for almost eleven years we wrote to each other. Sister Bernadette would come to the dorm and read Nella’s letter to me and then write a reply. Once, the day before Christmas Day, Nellacame to see me on her own. She was only twelve and I was fourteen. She’d hitched a ride to Bethlehem and then on again to Lansdale and then another to Philadelphia. She never told me how bad things had gotten for her family then. I didn’t hear about that until later. It took her fourteen hours to get here and she was soaked to the skin. She hid in my room until Christmas morning just so I wouldn’t have to wake up on my own. I’ll never forget it, never forget what a true friend she is.”

Nella stood quickly, cleared some of the plates from the table and took them to the kitchen area. She waved her hand impatiently, embarrassed by the attention.

“Then, the day I turned eighteen, I was called to the manager’s office at the front of the house.”

Cassie smiled and Nella burst out laughing. This part of the story was obviously something that had brought them much joy over the years.

“I knew my way around that whole building by then and as soon as I went into the office I could sense that there was someone else in the room. The manager said: ‘Ms Thomas, your aunt has sent her maid to take you home.’” Cassie faked a snobbish accent.

“Before I could say anything, I could hear Nella’s voice. She put on this strong southern voice. Goodness, I almost laughed out loud.‘It’s Nella,’ she said. ‘Youruncle said I should bring you home now that you’re eighteen. He couldn’t come here himself on account of his breathing problem.’”

Cassie laughed aloud and Nella raised her hands to her face as she shook her head at how audacious she had been at sixteen.

“Nella had even broken into this house which had been boarded up since Daddy died. Prudence had died by then so she typed up a letter from Prudence’s husband, directing the manager to place me in Nella’s care. She even signed his name. Lucky for us the manager didn’t care enough to check the signature or to phone him. My uncle hadn’t paid for my care for years. The manager had written to him lots of times but he ignored the letters and sent no money. There wasn’t a week that went by that the manager didn’t remind me of that.”

“Lord!” Nella said, blushing heavily from the kitchen counter. “Still can’t believe I did that!” she said shaking her head.

“So you got home?” Pilar asked.

“Yes. We didn’t have a car and we had very little money,” Cassie said. “Turned out that Nella’s family didn’t even live on the orchard anymore. My aunt had written to them some years before telling them that their tenancy was revoked! For a while Nella’s family had drifted around taking work wherever they could. Then, her father drifted on alone and Nella and her mother moved back to town here. Her momma was in poor health so she died young and, like me, Nella was alone in the world. She never heard from her father again and doesn’t know what happened to him. Anyway, when we left the orphanage, we hitched most of the way here and I think we must have looked a real sorry pair. When we got here, we pulled the boards off the windows and doors and cleaned the place up. That was when I found a letter Daddy left for me in his study, explaining everything about Melibea and how she had drowned Jonathan with her in New York Harbour, least that’s what he thought had happened. He left his will there, stating that his entire estate was to be left to me when I turned eighteen. It also said that he was leaving Prudence money so that she could manage a separate fund for my education but she never did that and, when she died, her husband couldn’t have cared less about me. I don’t know what they did with the money that was supposed to be spent on me. When I went to his attorney, I couldn’t believe how much money we had. Nella had taken a job waiting tables in town and she hated it. I said to her ‘Nella, you can quit now!’”

Cassie laughed and turned her face towards her brother.

“Half of that money is yours, Jonathan.”

Jonathan shook his head.“No,” he said.

“That’s the way Daddy would have wanted it,” Cassie answered. “I’ve got more money than I could ever spend.”

“What about the orchard?” Jonathan asked.

“I was never really interested in running it, Jonathan. I remember that you loved it, even though you were such a small boy. Nella harvests a little out front just for our own use but I’m sorry to say that most of the orchard has run wild. I don’t really know why but . . . I couldn’t face getting people into harvest it. It would be like letting the last piece of Daddy go. It’s silly, I suppose, but that’s how I felt. Daddy also told me in his letter about his relationship with Melibea and how Granddaddy had taken over when the man Melibea was with demanded a ransom. I’ll show the letter to you, Jonathan. He said that his biggest regret was not standing up to Granddaddy. He believed that if he had, you would have lived. We never found out who the man was that had helped Melibea with her plans.”

Brendan flushed and looked at Eileen. He was dreading telling Cassie Thomas that his father was responsible and that Melibea, or Mariana, was his aunt.

“It turned out that Melibea wasn’t even her real name. Granddaddy had someone investigate quietly and Melibea Lopez was an American-born citizen who’d had her passport stolen in New York several years before that. I’m sure that hurt Daddy very much.” Cassie sighed. “So, for almost two years Nella and I lived here alone while we built the house across the pathway. Nella married then –”

“Don’t remind me!”Nella yelled.

Cassie laughed. “We all lived then in the new house, Nella, Robert and –”

“Told you never to mention his name!” Nella yelled.“I was only nineteen and what a mistake! That skinny fool ran off on me and left me and Cassie with two wild boys to rear!”

Cassie laughed. “They’re both gone now, in New York working,” she said proudly.

“Surprised they turned out any way at all with your spoiling!” Nella snapped.

“So we’ve been here ever since,” said Cassie, “but we often thought about you, Jonathan. We’d still go up to the clearing and place flowers at your stone on your birthday. We’d remember funny stories and try to be happy. You were never far from our thoughts.”

Jonathan smiled.“I felt it. I knew you were thinking of me. I knew there was someone out there. It’s what kept me going all those years.”

He held his sister’s hand and looked lovingly at her. There was so much to ask, so much that he didn’t know.

“What happened to Momma’s family – they’re all dead now?” he asked.

“Yes. Prudence was the last of the Chapmans and like Momma she died young.”

“What about all the money Granddaddy had?”

Cassie Thomas groaned loudly. “Well, it turned out that Granddaddy was sexist as well as everything else. His will ignored me and stated that everything was to be divided equally between you and any sons that were born out of Prudence’s marriage. You see, he hadn’t written a new will after you disappeared.”

“Did she have a son? Brendan asked.

“As I said, Prudence was quite a socialite so there was always something to read about her in the Inquirer, sometimes even in the New York Times. Sadly, she miscarried four or five times. She was seven years married when she finally had a son but the birth was difficult and she died. The poor baby had brain damage and went into state care. That husband of hers didn’t even want to care for him. You’d think being a doctor that he’d be more caring. I guess Jan Reiter is clapping his hands together now. He has complete control over that money and that poor boy wouldn’t even understand what a dollar is.”

There was a stunned silence.

“Did you say Reiter? Dr Reiter?” Brendan asked.

“Yes.”

Pilar slammed down her coffee cup, spilling some of its contents onto the old table. “Oh my God!” she gasped.

“Do you know him?” Cassie asked.

Brendan looked at Pilar who sat with her mouth open, a stunned expression on her normally calm face.

She turned her head slowly to Jonathan. Brendan watched as her mouth opened and closed, trying to make sense of the news. She finally spoke.

“That’s . . . that’s why he prescribed such large doses of medication for you. I queried it but he pulled rank on me. He . . . he must have known who you were and he couldn’t afford for you to figure it out. It would mean he would have to share the inheritance with you.”

Jonathan stood and walked to the window. He turned and leaned on the windowsill, looking at the people in the room.

“I told him about Cassie and Nella, about this place, this house. He said it was all my imagination. He used my infatuation with the Nelsons to keep me committed there until he made me lose faith in my memories. But I never believed him. I just pretended to so he’d take me off the medication and leave me in peace with the few memories I had left.”

“He knew?” Brendan said. “Jesus . . . he . . . he could have . . . you could have got home years ago. He knew!” He looked at Pilar. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Pilar replied, still reeling from the realisation that Reiter had used her for his own financial gain.

“You should go to the police!” Nella yelled.

Pilar’s mobile phone rang. She lifted her bag and answered it as she made her way out of the front door.

The others sat there, silently, trying to absorb the revelation.

“What happened to you, Jonathan? Where have you been?” Cassie finally asked.

Jonathan took a deep breath and recounted as best he could his years locked in a tiny basement apartment in Harlem, his time under Dr Reiter’s care in a psychiatric hospital, the many foster homes that he ran away from which resulted in him being returned each time to the care of the cold-hearted doctor. He recalled how when he came of age he hit the road and spent several long lonely years searching for Cassie which had brought him to the shelter one fine summer evening. He declared how it looked so much like his home that he had stopped there and had sat on the swing in the yard like he dreamt he would do when he finally found his home. He told how Alice had taken him in and had cared for him and how he met Eileen whom he loved more than anything on this earth. He told her about Brendan and the strange coincidences that resulted in their paths crossing for a second time and how his friend had promised to help him find his way home. Finally, he told her that he never gave up on the idea that she was out there somewhere, wondering what had happened to him and that not one day had passed that he did not imagine this moment.

When he was finished, a silence settled in the room again.

“All that time,” Cassie said at last, shaking her head.

Brendan stood and looked at Eileen. It was the moment he dreaded.

“Eileen, we’d better go now,” he gulped.

Eileen stood and looked longingly at Jonathan.

All three walked to the door with heads bowed towards the ground.

On the porch Jonathan reached forward and pulled Brendan to him.

“Thank you,” he said as he patted his friend’s back.

Brendan did not pull back or flinch at the touch of another human being as he once would have done, and stood for a moment locked in his friend’s warm embrace.

“You’re not far away. I’ll come and see you,” he said. He looked at his sister and his friend. “I’ll let you say goodbye.”

He walked down the porch steps and over to the opposite side of the clearing where Pilar had parked the car and where she now stood, her phone conversation over. She smiled as he approached.

“Good news?” Brendan asked.

Pilar nodded. “You are now looking at the new manager of the DomusHomeless Shelter.”

“Congratulations!” Brendan hugged her.“What about Kuvic?”

“He’s sacked.Thompson said he’ll make sure Kuvic never works with vulnerable people again and, by the time the court case is over, Eileen will make doubly sure of it. I told Thompson about Jonathan and he was surprisingly supportive of him staying here. He’ll get Jane to contact the local psychiatric service today to check in on him as soon as possible. I must say – I don’t like leaving him here.Thompson’s agreed for me or Jane to come back every few days until the local services take over. I know Jonathan seems peaceful and happy now but unfortunately his problems aren’t going to go away overnight. He is still and always will be a traumatised man, Brendan. His psychosis won’t go away – he’ll still be afraid of Hispanic men, he’ll often think he can do things he saw the Nelsons do on TV. He’ll need support and understanding. I have to be sure Cassie and Nella can handle that.”

Brendan nodded. He understood what she was saying. Jonathan was never going to be the boy he had once been. He had been through so much that even with support and understanding, those memories and the awful experiences he endured would remain with him for the rest of his life.

“So . . . seems like I have a position to fill?” she grinned.

“What position is that?” he smirked.

“A job at the shelter, what did you think I meant?” she teased.

Brendan pretended to be disappointed.

“Of course, you do owe me a date,” she said. “I seem to remember you coming to my house to ask me something.”

Brendan raised his eyebrows. “You’re only answering that now?”

Pilar laughed. “You’re not going back to New York now, are you?” she asked.

Brendan shook his head. “No, I’m not. But . . . I don’t know if I’ll be staying in Dover. I . . . I’m really not sure where I’ll go from here.”

Pilar nodded, appreciating his honesty.“Well, maybe you’ll have your last meal with me before you go?”

“Okay, you’re on. Mexican food okay?”

Pilar snorted.“Puerto Rican food is better!” she replied.

“How about Irish food? Maybe bacon and cabbage?” he said as they fell about laughing.

As their laughter died, they heard someone approaching. It was Eileen making her way gingerly towards them.

“Pilar got the job!” Brendan shouted.

Eileen nodded and smiled at Pilar. “That’s good. Congratulations, Pilar! Em . . . Brendan, can I speak to you?” She looked sheepishly at Pilar.

Pilar smiled and headed towards the house to fill Cassie and Nella in on what she felt they would need to know about Jonathan.

“I’m not coming with you,” Eileen said, her voice firm but her eyes trained on the dirt road under her feet.

“Eileen!” he began but she moved a few steps backward and shook her head.

“Nothing you can say will make me change my mind, Brendan. I belong here. I belong with Jonathan.”

Brendan relaxed his shoulders and looked at her. He sighed. He took her hand and led her to some rocks where they sat and looked into the beautiful forest in front of them.

“Look – just come back with me and talk to Frank. Just for a few days.”

“Brendan – I love Jonathan. I want to be with him. There is nothing in Dover for me. I love Dad and Mom but . . . I need him and he needs me here. This will be strange for him, even if it is home. I can’t leave him and I don’t want to. I’m staying.”

“Okay,” he said.“But what will I tell Uncle Frank?”

Eileen laughed nervously. “Haven’t you learnt anything from me these past few months? I think you can handle him.”

Brendan pulled his sister to him.“I’m going to miss you!”

“I’m going to miss you too,” she replied.

“What will you do here?” he said, looking around the dense woodland of the rural setting.

Eileen followed his eyes around the magnificent scenery. “I’ve always wanted to live somewhere like this, somewhere quiet and peaceful, where I can think. Plus, the university is only a couple of hours from here. Maybe I’ll finish my degree. It doesn’t really matter as long as Jonathan and I are together.”

Brendan loosened his grip on her and stood up. She rose and linked his arm, and they walked towards the car.

“I’ll be back for Kuvic’s court date and to collect my car!” she said as she opened the boot and, to Brendan’s amusement, lifted out two small suitcases and her bag of books.

“Oh, so that’s why you wanted to take your car!” he laughed, shaking his head as he climbed in.

Pilar appeared, having given Cassie and Nella her contact details and told them all she felt they urgently needed to know – the rest could come later. She halted, astonished, when she saw Eileen carrying the suitcases.

“I take it you’re not coming?” she smirked.

Eileen smiled and shook her head.

As the car made its way slowly down the uneven roadway Brendan waved at his sister. He saw Jonathan come to stand beside her and place his arm protectively around her shoulders.

“Brendan?” Pilar said. “You’ve changed so much since you first came to the shelter and for the better. But . . . you’re not the only one who has changed.”

The smile he had seen only moments before had vanished and she looked at him with a determined expression on her face. Brendan frowned at her, unsure what she meant.

“Never again will I stay quiet when I know something is not right. I will be who I used to be. I’ll speak out and make sure that someone like Reiter doesn’t make me feel like what I have to say doesn’t matter.”

As Pilar and Brendan drove through the outskirts of Dover town, he signalled for her to stop outside the hospital.

“Want me to go in with you?” she asked.

Brendan shook his head and walked alone to Alice’s ward.

When he arrived on her ward, he stood in the corridor and peered into the small window of her hospital room. Theo was sitting on a chair looking at his sleeping mother while his eldest son sat slumped on another chair, sleeping soundly. Theo sat upright and moved to the door shaking his head. He opened the door and moved into the corridor to speak to Brendan.

“She’s been waiting for you. She said you’d be coming today,” he said, still shaking his head in amazement at the things his mother seemed to know.

“How is she?” Brendan asked.

“It’s nearly time. That’s what they said,” he replied quietly.

Brendan exhaled loudly and went into the room to take a seat beside the sleeping woman. In the few days since he had last seen her, she had wasted away and looked gaunt and thin, nothing like the vibrant, vivacious Alice he had known. Theo woke his son and took him outside leaving Brendan alone with Alice.

The air inside the room was acrid and stifling. Brendan yawned and stared at his friend’s frail face.

“Am I keeping you up?” she whispered.

Brendan laughed as Alice slowly opened her dark brown eyes.

“I dreamt about you, Brendan,” she gasped. “My husband, my Theo, he’s been here all day, marching from wall to wall in his uniform, staring at me and telling me he’s been waiting. I told him, I got to wait for Brendan. ‘Brendan?’ he said, thinking I’ve got myself a fancy man. Yes, I told him and hmm-mm he sure is good-looking, looks a lot like that Irish movie star, what’s his name?”

Brendan smiled and shrugged.

“Well, you should have seen my husband getting all irate at the thought of me looking at another man. I told him, you relax there because I’m old enough to be this boy’s mama and he laughed then and said, ‘I’ll be here, Alice, you just tell me when you’re ready.’”

Alice quietened and fixed a smile on her face as her eyes slowly closed.

“Alice?” Brendan yelped, his heart quickening.

“I’m here. I’m just resting my eyes,” she replied sleepily.

“Alice, I have something to tell you. We did it, Alice. We brought Jonathan home. I found his sister and he is there now. Eileen stayed with him.”

A solitary tear fell down Alice’s cheek and landed on the fold of her neck.

“I knew you would,” she drawled as she opened her eyes. “Are they good people?”

“The best.”

“First time I laid eyes on your special soul, I said that. I said that to myself. I said ‘Alice, this boy is here for a reason’.”

Brendan reached into the cot and held her hand.

“Now, you don’t get fresh because, look, there’s my Theo at the wall again, looking at this white boy holding his wife’s hand.”

Brendan glanced nervously at the wall but could see nobody.

He flinched as her breathing became raspy and turned to see if her son was outside. He waved and the sad-looking man came back into the room.

“Alice, I’ve got to go now. Will you remember that Jonathan is home? Will you remember that we found his sister?”

“I surely will,” she replied.“Brendan?”

“Yes, Alice?”

“Do you know what day today is?”

Brendan shook his head.“No.”

“Why, it’s my retirement day.”

Alice coughed and signalled for Theo to hand her a small envelope from the drawer of her locker.

“I got something for you,” she said.

She took the envelope from her son’s hand and passed it to Brendan. He opened it and scanned down his record of community service with her signature on the end.

“See, we’re both free now, Brendan. I’m finished and so are you. I know where I’m going but what are you going to do now, boy?”

Brendan shrugged. “I don’t know, Alice, but I know that I don’t need to be in the noise anymore. I think I might go to Pennsylvania to be near my sister and Jonathan. The important thing is, I don’t feel like I have to hide anymore. I know who I am now.”

“That’s a good enough answer,” she said as she closed her eyes wearily.

Brendan leant forward and kissed his friend for the last time.

“Thanks for everything, Alice. I’ll never forget you,” he said as a smile washed slowly over her face. “Never.”

Chapter 34

As the sun set gently over Dover town, Brendan slipped quietly down the side entrance of his uncle’s house, hoping for a quiet hour in his apartment before he told his uncle that Eileen was not coming back. He ducked his head down as he passed under Coleen’s kitchen window and moved to the edge of the house, hoping that he had not been seen.

A familiar figure stood statue-like in the garden in the very spot where he had so often stood, admiring the panoramic views over the picturesque town.

Patricia turned and looked at him, then returned her gaze to the beautiful sunset on the west side of his uncle’s garden.

“I saw Eileen leave with you. She’s not coming back, is she?” she asked.

Brendan shook his head.

“Good for her,” his mother said. She gestured towards the view before her. “I used to love this view. When we moved here first, I thought it was the prettiest thing I ever saw.”

Brendan walked across the large garden to where his mother stood and stopped just behind her, looking out at the stunning view.

“I’ve found a place to live,” she said. “A couple of blocks on the other side of town. It’s a small apartment but it’s enough for one person. I hate gardening anyway. I never was much use at growing things.”

She turned to face him and he nodded.

“You want to know why I treated you the way I did? Why I was not what a mother should have been?”

Brendan nodded as his chin quivered slightly. He looked away from his mother and focused his eyes on the town as it disappeared slowly under the darkening sky.

“Every time I looked at you, I saw Rafael. I realised that you would be a reminder of my stupidity every day for the rest of my life.”

“That didn’t give you the right to treat me the way you did,” he said. “It’s no excuse. I was just a child, an innocent child.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“That’s why you didn’t speak to me? All those years of silent treatment, because I looked like my father?”

“No. It was because I didn’t think I had anything to offer you. I . . . I hated myself.”

“And therefore hated me?”

“I didn’t hate you,” she replied quietly.“I felt sorry for you, having a mother like me, but there was nothing I could do to change that. There was no one else to take care of you and I didn’t want to leave you with Frank. The very mention of Rafael’s name sent him crazy. What kind of a father would he have made you who were the living image of the man he hated? I know I can’t undo what I’ve done but I am really sorry. I’m hoping that we can at least . . . try to be friends.”

Patricia put out her small hand towards him and waited.

He searched her face and slowly raised his hand, taking her fragile hand in his.

“Yes,” he answered. “We can try.”

Chapter 35

The small orchard at the side of the shelter looked different to Brendan as he harvested the last of Jonathan’s apples amid the falling leaves in the early November sunshine. It had been a task that Brendan had put off many times since his friend had returned to his home in Pennsylvania as though the pulling of the apples would signify the end of the adventure they had enjoyed and would tell Brendan that it was also time for him to leave, to uproot himself from this town and the people that he had begun to love. When he pulled the last apple from the tree, he walked alone along the boundary of the property and remembered how Jonathan had watched him in the late spring sunshinefrom behind those very trees, now laid bare in the autumn fall.

He walked into the house and wandered around the large front room and into the laundry where his sister had undertaken her labour of love for all those years. He climbed the ornate staircase and remembered how his friend had inched by him in fear as he repaired the beautiful balusters on the antique stairwell and how together they had laboured to repair the furniture in the large dorms where Zeb still fought each night with the other men for his favourite bed under the window.

He climbed the last few steps to Jonathan’s tower and stood for a moment, unable to bring himself to open the door to the now empty room. He missed his needy, confused friend more than he realised, the new Jonathan growing in confidence each time Brendan drove to the clapboard house and watched the man clear out the overgrown orchards on his father’s farm.Jonathan had even filed charges against Dr Reiter, not for monetary gain but to expose the well-known psychiatrist as the evil man he truly was and to bring him to justice.

Brendan walked to his mother’s new car where he had stacked as many boxes of Jonathan’s harvest as he could fit in the boot.

“There,” he said as struggled to fit the last box in. “You’d think he hadenough apples of his own where he is,” he said to Henrietta who stood in the garden, watching him.

Brendan glanced at the heavy-set woman who had cooked at the shelter for more years than she cared to remember. The last time he had seen her was at Alice’s funeral. His friend had died only hours after he’d told her that Jonathan had made it home. Contrary to what he had expected, the funeral had not been a sad affair. He had actually enjoyed the celebration of his friend’s life, which was held in a packed-out Baptist church in Dover. True to how the woman had lived her life, people from all sections of the community had crowded in to say goodbye. When Brendan arrived he had noticed Zeb standing at the very back of the church. He invited him to come and sit with the Dalton family but Zeb had refused, telling him that he was never a churchgoing man but that he had come here to say goodbye to Alice. His casts were now gone and the old man’s arms hung limply by his sides as he stood alone in the background. Mr Thompson and all the board members had also crowded into the tiny church and Brendan noticed how the usually sour man was brought to tears as he watched Alice’s grandchildren bring symbols of all she held dear onto the altar, one of which was a large poster of Mr Thompson’s uncle who had been a great support to Alice in her futile search for her husband all those years ago – she had never forgotten the kindness he had shown her. Pilar was there with Guido and Isabel, as was Frank and all of the Dalton family.

Jonathan and Eileen had also arrived and had announced their engagement over dinner the previous evening, Jonathan having asked Frank for his daughter’s hand two days before. “It’s a bit late to be asking now,” Frank had responded, still seething from his daughter stealing away in the dead of night without as much as a goodbye.

Brendan was glad that he’d had a chance to speak to his uncle alone before he left the house that morning. He had found him in the front garden, pretending to plant spring bulbs.

“Thanks for everything,” he had said as he stretched out his hand to Frank.

“Thanks?” Frank had asked.“You’re my nephew, no need to thank me for putting you up.”

Brendan flushed.“No, thank you for . . . bringing me here and for . . . for making a . . . man of me.”

Frank’s mouth had dropped open.“My tough love worked on someone?” he had asked, joking.

“It did.”

“Will you put that in writing?” his uncle quipped to hide his embarrassment.

Brendan laughed and shook his uncle’s hand as the two men stared into each other’s faces. Then he instinctively pulled the old man to him and hugged him tightly.

“Hey!” Frank had said.“You’ll only be just over an hour away. Anyway, I’ll need someone to keep an eye on Eileen for me. I’m not completely sure about that chap she’s going out with yet. Will you do that?”

Brendan nodded.“I will.”

“Brendan?” his uncle asked as he glanced towards the car where Patricia, who had agreed to drive Brendan, sat waiting.“And I’ll look after your mother here. I don’t know why she had to move into that apartment but . . . she seems happy and that’s all I ever wanted.”

Brendan could hear his mother start to cry in the driver’s seat. He felt he finally understood his old uncle who had been forced into manhood at an early age and had tried, albeit erroneously, to protect his family from all of the evil in the world.

Frank waved tearfully to her as she buried her head in her hands.

“We’ll see you at Thanksgiving in Wilsonville!” Brendanhad shouted as they drove away.

Now, as he slammed the boot of the car shut in the driveway of the shelter, he saw Pilar in the window of Jonathan’s room, watching him. True to her word, they’d had dinner the night before at a Puerto Rican restaurant and they hadspent a lot of time together since Jonathan’s departure. He had even accompanied her to Wilsonville anytime she was due to check on how their friend was doing. He waved to her and smiled when she raised her petite hand and waved back to him.

“You sure you don’t want to stay here?” his mother asked from the driver’s seat.

Brendan took one last look at the beautiful woman in the window and shook his head.

“I’m sure,” he said hesitantly.

He looked up and gave Pilar one last wave as the car made its way onto Maple Street.

Epilogue

Kuvic’s court case was swift with Eileen only having to appear once to give evidence about the terrible night he attacked her at the shelter. Mr Thompson was there to listen as a guilty verdict was read out by the jury of men and women in Dover district court. Brendan could feel Alice in the room with them and could almost hear her raucous laugh as Kuvic was led away to serve an eighteen-month prison sentence. Even in death, his friend was getting her way. Kuvic’s career working with the helpless and disempowered wasfinally over.

Jan Reiter did not receive a prison sentence but his licence to practise medicine was revoked, which nobody believed would be any real hardship for the aging psychiatrist who had only been working part-time at the hospital so he could oversee Jonathan’s long-term community care and ensure that the strange man never found his way home. More painful to Reiter was the court’s decision that half of the money his son had inherited be awarded to Jonathan and that an advocate be assigned to Reiter’s son to ensure the money was finally used to provide the severely disabled man with the best care money could buy.

Jonathan in turn donated a large proportion of his inheritance to the shelter, which enabled Pilar to provide the extra services she had long since envisaged for her clients.

The now married man had also gone to great lengths to find the unmarked plots where Melibea and her mother had been buried and found that the mother and daughter had been laid to rest not far from each other in Harlem’s Trinity Cemetery. Brendan accompanied Jonathan to watch as two new headstones, engraved with the women’s real names, were placed at the head of their final resting places.

Brendan settled into life in the Appalachian Mountains better than he had anticipated, the quiet of the woodlands seeping into his soul as though he had always belonged there. By day, he taught literature to small groups of animated adolescents, hungry for the stories he had read so passionately as a lonely child in Ireland, and by evening he would spend time with his friend, clearing more sections of the vast orchard or climbing to the clearing that Jonathan had described to him so beautifully from a hilltop in Dover. That day now felt like it had occurred a long, long time ago. In finding his friend’s lost home, he had also discovered a place where he could belong, a place where he now lived in peace.

When Jonathan and Eileen had their first child, a bridge was created which Patriciacould use to heal the wounds of the past. Some eveningsEileen would organise a get-together. Frank and Coleen would visit with Patricia as would Cassie and Nella. Pilar would arrive and Brendan’s heart would soar at the very sight of her. On each visit, he noticed she would stay on longer. He knew she was beginning to love the peaceful place and that the draw of Dover was slowly slipping from her. Together they would all sit at the large oak table and talk about their day. On those beautiful evenings Brendan would watch his friend’s eyes moisten as he enjoyed the very thing he had missed most during his time in captivity. Then he would walk with Pilar into the dense woodlands and listen to the wind blowing through the majestic trees.

And on the nights when she was not there, he would sit in his room in the big clapboard house set high among the mountains and imagine Pilarstanding in the round window, waving to him as she had done the day he left Dover. He would think about her then, her hair tied up tightly as she roamed around that big old house, checking on her charges and locking the house down for the night. And sometimes he would succeed in shaking that lonely image from his mind. He’d stand andlook out of his window into the darkness of the wilderness around him where he’d see her standing barefoot on the long dirt driveway, as he knew she someday would, her hair loose around her, waiting for him to come take her from the darknessand into the light of the shaded room.

If you enjoyed

The Incredible Life of Jonathan Doe

by Carol Coffey

why not try Winter Flowers also published by Poolbeg?

Here’s a sneak preview of the first three chapters.

Chapter 1 Winter Flowers

“Iris Fay, are you in there?” The man’s voice boomed from outside the rundown shop as he knocked heavily on the door.

Iris switched on her bedside lamp, leapt from her small bed and threw an old dressing-gown around her thin body. She had not been asleep. She glanced at the clock. It was one o’clock. She rarely slept before three, spending the darkest hours lying there, thinking. She pulled the belt tight and tied it, staring at her thin pale face in the dusty bedroom mirror. In the dim light she looked older than her forty years. She raced to the door.

“Wait! I’m coming!” she called weakly.

Iris opened the door and saw a tall garda with a young boy standing beside him.

“Is this your nephew, Miss Fay?”

Iris looked down at the dishevelled boy. Her heart sank. She knew this meant trouble.

“Yes,” she breathed heavily. “Luke . . . my sister’s boy.”

“Well, he didn’t know your address or phone number and your sister wouldn’t say. We had to get him to direct us here.”

“What’s happened . . . is my sister . . . where’s Jack?”

The boy stayed silent, not knowing if he should speak. He was afraid his mother might be angry at him for coming here but he hadn’t known what else to do. There were black marks on his face and he was dressed in a T-shirt and light track-suit top despite the cold night.

“The younger child is with hospital staff,” the garda answered.

“Hospital – what’s happened?” Iris asked loudly. Fear gripped her and she began to sway slightly.

“There was a fire. They’re fine but they inhaled fumes. They’ll probably keep your sister overnight. The boy will be discharged when someone comes to collect him.”

“How did it happen?”

“The fire department thinks it was probably a chip pan left on a cooker that hadn’t been turned off. Too soon to tell though. Do these boys have a father I can call? This one says you’re their only relative. Is that true?”

“Yes,” Iris replied sadly as she stroked her nephew’s curly head.

She looked down at Luke and felt an overwhelming pity for him. What was going to become of the boys with a mother like theirs? It was over two weeks since her troubled younger sister had last visited her. The visit had ended in yet another row. That’s the way it was for them. When things weren’t going right for Hazel, she would barge into Iris’s tiny flat looking for trouble.

Luke smiled sheepishly up at her. He liked his Aunty Iris. She was good to him even though she often made his mother cry and he didn’t like it when people made his mother cry. Even though he was not yet eight years old, he was the man of the house and it was his job to protect his mother. It was a hard job though because she needed a lot of protecting and sometimes he needed Aunty Iris to help, times like now.

“Can you look after the lads tonight?” the garda asked doubtfully, peering in at the rundown sewing shop she called home.

“Yes,” Iris replied, knowing what he was thinking. “There’s room at the back. I’ll collect Jack at the hospital.”

“Miss?”

“Yes?”

“The younger lad has asthma?”

“Yes.”

“You might tell the boy’s mother that it’s probably not smart to be smoking in a house with an asthmatic child.”

Iris reddened and lowered her head. “I’ll see that he gets his medication, officer. I’m a . . . I used to be a nurse . . .”

Thanking the garda, Iris moved Luke inside and closed the door slowly. She exhaled a loud breath and stood with her back against the cold glass of the door for a moment, digesting the news, then led her shivering nephew through the small shop and into her living area.

She washed his face in her tiny cold bathroom and gave him one of her own jumpers to keep warm.

“Don’t worry – it doesn’t look like a girl’s jumper!” she said. “You hungry, love?”

“Just a bit.”

In the kitchenette she set about making some toast and slicing some cheese.

Luke could feel the anger rising in her. He watched her neck redden and her lips moving silently and knew she was about to ask questions he didn’t want to answer.

“Who was smoking in the house, Luke? Did your mam have a visitor?”

Iris hated this, using the child to find out what was going on but she had no choice. Hazel was never going to tell her what had happened.

He didn’t answer, and that was answer enough.

She led him into the sitting room and put his plate and a glass of milk on the coffee table.

Luke sat and began to eat. He thought about lying but knew he’d only get himself into a bigger mess. It would be a sin. He was making his Communion next May and he knew he’d have to save it up for Confession.

“Mam’s friend came round,” he said at last, in his flat Dublin accent. “D’you ’member Pete?”

“Oh yeah,” Iris replied, trying to hide her annoyance.

Pete Doyle only came around when Hazel collected her One- Parent Family Payment. He’d usually spend the night after talking Hazel into spending more than she could afford on booze, and then disappear for another week.

“Were . . . were they . . . ?” Iris hated this. She watched Luke squirm as he swallowed a huge bite of toast and cheese. She stopped herself for a moment. She knew it wasn’t fair on the child but decided to continue anyway. “Were they having a good night then?”

Luke looked up, unsure how to answer the question. He knew that Iris hated it when people smoked around his younger brother and that she also didn’t like it when his mam had been drinking.

“Em . . . yeah,” he replied nervously. “Mam was laughing for ages . . .” He stopped, wondering if that was too much information because he knew that his mam only laughed that much when she drank too much wine.

“Ah . . . that’s nice,” Iris said unconvincingly. “Well, finish your milk and let’s go and collect your brother. He’ll be worried, won’t he? I’ve enough for a taxi so it’ll be an adventure, eh?”

Luke was looking worried, already concerned that there would be another row between his mam and his aunt.

The pair huddled together as they made their way down Fairview Strand towards the taxi rank in the bitter cold. It was pitch black and there wasn’t a soul to be seen.

The taxi driver didn’t seem too pleased to be woken from his slumber as he sat parked on the corner and didn’t say a word to either of his depressed-looking passengers, although he was slightly interested in why the woman was going to hospital with a child at this hour. He didn’t look sick. Skinny maybe, but not sick.

When they pulled up in front of the old inner-city hospital he muttered the fare and found that his passengers were as dour as he was. He watched as they walked with bowed heads towards the large wooden doors of the formidable building. Maybe they’ve received bad news about a relative, he thought, suddenly feeling guilty, before turning the car back towards his rank. Ah well, if I’m lucky I’ll get a couple of hours’ kip before the day job starts.

A&E on the ground floor of the hospital had a long miserable line of old iron trolleys that should have been replaced years before. Iris could see Hazel before the nurse pointed her out. Hazel’s long narrow body almost made it to the end of the trolley while her thick fair hair covered the pillow.

Iris approached her sister gingerly. She didn’t want another row although she did intend to find out eventually what had happened.

Iris cleared her throat, anxious not to say the wrong thing and God knew it was easy to say the wrong thing to her highly strung sister. “How are you?” she asked quietly. She leaned in to kiss Hazel but pulled back quickly when her sister turned her face away. Iris sighed. “I’ve brought you some toilet things and a couple of nightdresses. They’re mine, hope they fit you . . . might be too short though.”

She knew Hazel loved to gloat about the difference in their appearances. Although both women were considered pretty when they were younger, Iris was short and dark while Hazel was very tall with long straight fair hair. They both had their mother’s eyes: large round blue eyes that made them look constantly surprised, or scared.

Iris placed the bag she was carrying on the trolley and stood with her hands in her pockets. She looked at Luke who stood like a frightened rabbit, his brown eyes narrowed beneath his curly brown hair that was badly in need of a cut. Both boys looked like their father whom they never saw and didn’t remember.

“Hazel,” she said softly, “I’ll take the boys to my place tonight. The nurse said you’ll probably be out tomorrow. Jack’s in the children’s ward but they said to take him – that he’s fine but keeps crying – and he –”

“No! You’re not taking my kids anywhere!” Hazel shouted loudly, her sudden rage frightening the entire A&E including her sister and her son whose lip began to quiver slightly.

A nurse began walking towards Hazel’s bed.

“Hazel, please . . .” Iris said as softly as she could. “If they don’t come with me the hospital will ring Social Services.” She moved closer to the trolley to avoid Luke hearing her. “You don’t want that, do you?” she whispered.

Hazel jumped from the bed and, tearing off the nightdress the hospital had supplied, began putting her clothes on. She swayed and almost fell as she was pulling her jeans on but seemed unaware of her son’s acute embarrassment.

“Don’t you tell me what I want for my kids!” she screamed, before coughing loudly.

“Hazel!” the nurse called out. “Get back into bed, please – your breathing is still laboured.”

Hazel ignored the nurse and began walking towards the door of the ward.

“I’m signing myself out. I feel perfect now,” she said sharply to the nurse, raising her voice in a mocking intonation. “That okay with you?”

The nurse had met plenty like her before. They came in looking for help, worse for wear, and then up and left without as much as a thank you. Well, she didn’t care either way. One less to look after through the night.

“You’ll have to sign a discharge form,” she replied dryly as she watched the woman sway.

At the nurses’ station she quickly filled in a form and handed it to Hazel to sign.

She looked at the young child and then at Iris. “You staying with her tonight?”

Iris nodded.

“Good luck,” she said as she snapped the signed discharge form from Hazel and directed the sisters to the children’s ward.

Jack slept soundly in the taxi on the way home. Iris knew not to ask how bad the fire was and whether or not they could actually sleep there tonight. These questions were pointless with Hazel when she was like this. When the taxi pulled up in the small cul-de-sac outside the house, Iris couldn’t see any external damage.

They got out and walked to the front door, Hazel struggling to carry Jack, unwilling to let her sister help. She opened the door and stepped inside, then pulled Luke angrily into the hallway before slamming the door loudly in Iris’s face.

Iris stood, rooted to the spot. Her shoulders dropped forward. She had used the last of her cash on the taxi. She pulled her coat around her and looked up at the dark sky as she turned to walk the three-mile journey home.

Chapter 2 Winter Flowers

The narrow sitting room which sat directly behind Iris’s modest clothes-repair shop was darkly decorated with cheap furniture, some of which had been her mother’s. A small television sat on a low table and faced a worn two-seater sofa-bed and equally worn armchair, a coffee table in front of them. A silver-tasselled lamp stood tall on a side table which was adorned with a photo of Hazel and the boys on one side and one of Iris and Hazel as children on the other. A small wooden kitchen table was pressed up against the wall directly behind the shop as there was no room for it in the kitchenette. To the left of the sitting room was the door to Iris’s tiny bedroom which consisted of a single bed with a wardrobe and side table and looked more like a convent cell than a single woman’s bedroom. A door in the far wall of the sitting room led into the kitchenette which had room only for an old gas stove, small fridge and sink. Two painted cupboards stood over by the window that faced onto a small concrete yard. Iris’s cat, Marmalade, sat on the window ledge, looking in at her as she prepared her modest evening meal. It made periodic meowing sounds, hoping to get inside from the cold breeze that blew around the yard. A bathroom jutted off the kitchenette with a small shower cubicle, toilet and hand basin. It obviously had been added onto the old building as an afterthought. It had no radiator and Iris dreaded showering there in the winter.

She looked about the flat and, while she knew she didn’t have to live this meagrely, she liked it. It was a simple life. She did not need much and found that she preferred to give any extra cash she had to Hazel for the boys than spend it on material things for herself.

Iris pondered the day’s event as she ate while watching EastEnders which was her favourite programme.

Hazel had come into the shop that day, almost two weeks after slamming the door in her sister’s face, all smiles and cheerfulness, as if nothing had happened. But that was Hazel. Iris was used to it and, while she liked seeing her sister, she enjoyed a strange sort of peace when Hazel was fighting with her. Even though it could be lonely, life was predictable. She would get up each morning early and walk for about an hour before spending the day repairing clothes for her few regular customers or occasionally making new dresses for young brides or debutantes who knew nothing of what life was to bring, God help them. She didn’t have to worry about her sister flying off the handle about some slight comment she might make.

Yet the sisters depended on each other. Their parents had not had a happy marriage and rowed constantly. Hazel was too young to remember much about either of their parents and anything she did recall was through rose-coloured glasses. When their dad failed to return after yet another row, their mother had sat the sisters down and told them that he had been killed in a car accident. Three years later their mother died, a needless death caused by alcoholism. It haunted Iris to this day and caused great bitterness. All her mistakes, she felt, were down to that one selfish act. It had led her to this place, to this life.

Iris sighed. Tomorrow was Friday and she had agreed to take the boys for the weekend while Hazel went to Galway with some friends. Where her sister got the money to go away she didn’t know, but she said nothing. As usual, she kept her mouth shut when she didn’t approve – and anyway she loved having the boys. Luke was a handful, though, so she was even happier when Hazel returned for them and she could return to her peaceful, predictable existence.

Iris looked up at the clock on the wall above the television. There was nothing good on and it was only eight o’clock. She sat in silence for a few minutes and wondered what to do with herself. She could hear the rain start to fall heavily against the window. The flat was cold and she rose to get another cardigan to put around her shoulders. She hoped that Hazel had lit the fire for the boys and wondered if she’d remembered to fill the prescription for Jack’s regular inhaler. She almost phoned Hazel to remind her but stopped herself in time. She stood and walked back into the shop. May as well use the time to work, she thought. She sat down at her sewing machine and hummed as she began to work.

Chapter 3 Winter Flowers

After Hazel dropped the boys off to her sister for the weekend, she raced back to her house and began dolling herself up. She hadn’t wanted to lie to Iris, telling her she was going to Galway with friends, but her sister would never understand if she said Pete was coming around. The woman lived like a nun. Hazel didn’t know how Iris didn’t get lonely like she herself did, but they had always been so different. Iris was always the strong one while Hazel was the emotional one, crying or laughing and nothing in between.

The three-bedroom red-bricked house that Hazel lived in was the most constant thing in her life. It had been her parents’ house. She had grown up there and, except for the years when she and Iris had to go into care, she had never lived anywhere else. The house was only minutes away from the Botanic Gardens, which she loved. She couldn’t understand why Iris didn’t want to live there with her, preferring the grotty little flat. It was a modest house that was in need of some redecoration but it was a decent size and what Hazel loved most about it was the large back garden where her father used to tend his beloved plants. It was where he was happiest, Iris had said, although Hazel didn’t really remember him. Even the photos of him looked somehow foreign to her. There was one particular photo of him, standing alone by an old-fashioned motor car, taken in Sussex where he was born and where her parents had met when her mother went to work there. He was young and handsome, smiling into the camera with a confident air. When she was a teenager she used to spend hours looking into the photo, hoping for some memory to come to her, anything at all, but it never did. He was a stranger whom she was told had loved her dearly. Hazel knew that her father had walked out during a row with her mother. Although her memories were few, she remembered her mother telling them a few days later that he had died in an accident – she remembered because Iris had screamed when she heard and had cried all night in her bed and Hazel had rarely seen Iris crying. She often wondered at how different their lives could have been if he’d come back and sorted out the problem with their mother. He wouldn’t have been driving that car in England and he’d be alive. She thought of her boys and wondered how anyone could walk out on their children but then she only had to look at her sister to see that it was possible. After what Iris did, Hazel wondered if it was somehow genetic, something inherited that made you just walk out without as much as an explanation. Hazel knew she wasn’t the world’s greatest mother – but to abandon her kids! She’d never do it, never. No matter how bad things got, and they often got really, really bad.

She wasn’t brushing the boys off now because of Pete. She wouldn’t do that. It was just easier if they weren’t there. She needed some time alone with Pete. It would be nice. He shouted a bit much at the boys anyway so they probably preferred to be with Iris who would spoil them, she reasoned to herself. It wasn’t Pete’s fault – he wasn’t used to kids, that’s all. If it worked out between them, he’d get used to the boys. They were good kids. All in good time, she thought, as she dressed in the skimpiest dress she could find. She applied some bright red lipstick and stood back to look at herself in the mirror. “Gorgeous!” she said, laughing. She looked great and had regained her figure despite putting on almost three stone during her pregnancies. She thought fleetingly about Gerry, the boys’ father, and wondered where he was now. Probably still married to his wagon of a wife who he wouldn’t leave to be with her. Bastard. He hadn’t actually told her he was married until she was pregnant with Luke. He promised he’d leave his wife, start a new life with their son and she believed him. She should have known better. She was twenty-nine at the time, not a kid. Gerry was older than her, a lot older, but she didn’t mind – she liked it actually. It made her feel kind of safe, protected. While Gerry was filling her full of lies about buying a house in the country where she could plant a garden as good as her dad’s, she fell pregnant again with Jack. She threatened him to make him leave his wife, said she’d tell. She even begged him when she became desperate but he walked away, just like her dad – only this time she would remember it. The thought of being a single mother of two children depressed her. She was no snob but she knew she could have done better and couldn’t understand why she had settled for this. It puzzled her to this day. Well, it was all history now. The boys were getting big and she hadn’t had any luck with any of her boyfriends since, and there had been a lot of boyfriends, lots of losers who promised her the stars and took more than they gave in return. She felt that Pete was different. For one, he had never been married so didn’t come with any baggage. Even if it didn’t turn into any fairytale wedding, she had fun with Pete. He took her out of her dead-end life and made her laugh. She needed him; she needed anyone who did that for her. She was suffocating in her monotonous existence and if she had to settle for short bursts of happiness, then that would have to do. Hazel peered closer into the mirror and inspected the frown lines that appeared each time she was thinking like this, thinking like Iris did – worry, worry, worry.

The doorbell rang and Hazel glanced in the mirror again, making final touches to her make-up. It rang a second time as she quickly adjusted her dress and took one last look at herself. As she raced downstairs to open the door, Pete was already ringing the bell impatiently for the third time.

“Come on. Open the bleedin’ door, will ya – it’s freezing!” he shouted.

Hazel stood for a moment on the last step. She hoped Pete wasn’t in a bad mood. She took a deep breath before swinging the door open. She smiled nervously.

“Sorry, Pete . . . sorry.”

If you enjoyed these chapters from

Winter Flowers by Carol Coffey,

why not order the full book online

@ www.poolbeg.com

Poolbeg wishes to

thank you

for buying a Poolbeg book.

If you enjoyed this why not visit our website:

www.poolbeg.com

and get another book delivered straight

to your home or to a friend’s home!

All books despatched within 24 hours.

Why not join our mailing list

@ www.poolbeg.com and get some

fantastic offers on Poolbeg books