Faye let William help her inside where he insisted she lie down and rest. She waited until he was out of the house then went to the window to see what he would do. He walked around the little boat, ran his hand along the gunwale. He glanced back at the house as if he might make an argument. Faye retreated from the window. Relief washed over her as he climbed into the truck and towed the boat out of their lives.
Chapter Ten
1968
It was a Saturday morning, late in the fall, and the farmhouse was freezing cold. Faye was running late. They had lost power during a storm the night before, lights flickering with each moan of wind working its way around the barnyard, early snow spraying the side of the house like paper spitballs. Thankfully William made it home from work before the worst of it had started, time enough to bring in wood before dinner, to find candles and matches and flashlights. When the blackout came, he’d brought blankets down to the living room to pin up in the doorway to keep heat from escaping and to make a sleeping pallet in front of the fire. Maeve, seven years old, found the whole thing a delight, snuggling between Faye and William on the floor, begging for book after book until both parents were hoarse from storytelling.
Faye called for Maeve, who she’d sent upstairs to change now that power was restored and heat banged through the house. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
The phone rang, and Faye threw her head back in frustration. Probably William calling from the hardware store. She hopped to the receiver, pulling on her second boot as she did. She cradled the phone between her jaw and neck. It was her father. The wall clock said they were nearly half an hour later than she’d told him.
“I know. We’re late. We lost power last night.”
“I have a problem,” Thomas said.
“I’m on my way, Papa.” She covered the receiver with her hand and yelled into the house for Maeve to hurry up. “What is it?”
“It seems your mother is dead.”
Faye felt a club to the chest, touched the wainscot to ground herself. She’d never heard those words from anyone, not in the hospital, the orphanage. Not from her uncle or from the nuns. She was a girl again, her Mutti in the dirty street. “Your mother.” Had Jean ever been her mother? Faye could hardly recall a day when she’d felt love from or for her. But Thomas had more than made up for it. She wondered sometimes if it hurt Jean even more than Fiadh’s death, that her own husband loved Faye so completely, especially since their relationship was borne from such sorrow. Yet how Jean could pour herself into Conor O’Kane had perplexed Faye. He’d tried to forge a relationship with William, but Faye suspected William continued to be dubious of his motives, especially after finding Conor alone with his wife, that grin of his always taunting. But Jean had been another thing entirely. Thomas had once—only once, given his nature—complained to Faye that O’Kane and Jean seemed to share something unnatural, some huddled secret that always excluded him. He said Conor had confessed to Jean that he’d fallen in with a tough crowd and that Jean worried about him, cared about his safety. Faye could not bring herself to say it then, and it pained her that it was the first thing she thought of now, that Jean loved Conor like a son but could not love her like a daughter, could not love her at all.
When she was pregnant with Maeve, Faye had had doubts about whether she even knew how to love a child. She watched other young mothers cradle and caress their newborns and hoped it would come to her naturally. She’d certainly not learned it from either of her mothers. Her memories of Mutti were clouded by war. If there had been tenderness, the fight for survival had torn it from her. As for Jean, grief occupied the space where love might have grown.
“Did you hear me?” Thomas’s voice brought her back. “I said Jean is dead.”
Maeve bolted down the stairs and plowed into Faye. The punch of her was solid and alive and made Faye breathe deeply. She was not Mutti. And she was not Jean. Loving her child was easy. Protecting her and keeping her safe was Faye’s job. She lifted her daughter onto her hip and gripped her waist. In a flash, Faye remembered when Jean held Maeve for the first time. Her shoulders had eased, the lines in her face had softened even in the harsh hospital light. What was it that she said? “She’s beautiful, dear.” That was it. Jean had called Faye “dear.” Maybe some scrap of love had been there after all, even in its smallest measure. Faye boosted Maeve higher onto her hip.
“Papa! What happened?”
There was not much to it. Thomas woke that morning like every morning since his retirement, without an alarm, when the sun poked through the window, when his eyes opened, when the bathroom called. Next to him, Jean lay cold.
“I tried to wake and warm her, but she was having none of it. I have quite a mess, I’m afraid.” Thomas explained that Jean had wet the bed, and he couldn’t bring himself to clean it up. “I didn’t want to leave her alone. You know she’s always been so alone.”
“Oh, Papa! Is she still there?”
“Aye,” Thomas said, his voice cracking. “She is that.”
“Hold on. William is out. I’ll drop Maeve at the Delaneys’ and be there as soon as I can.”
She hung up, put her nose into Maeve’s hair, searching for the smell of baby scalp gone since the toddler years. Faye thought of her father sitting alone in the quiet house.
“Sweet girl,” Faye cooed, closed her eyes. “I love you so much, you know that?”
Maeve cuddled into Faye like a big bear cub climbing a tree, legs around her body, arms around her neck, her grand heart knowingwithout asking that this was what her mother needed most. “Don’t cry,” she said, nuzzling into the crook of Faye’s neck.
The funeral mass was held at the church Jean attended regularly, Thomas only on Easter and Christmas, as demanded. Faye and William sat with her father, Maeve fidgeting between them in a navy plaid jumper and white ruffled blouse, knee socks bagging into her Mary Janes. That morning, she asked Faye to help her write two lists, each with its own intent. It was Maeve’s way of sorting her feelings, one that Faye and William knew well. One was titled “Grandma” (sweater, strawberry pin cushion, rhubarb pie, rocks, be quiet, tea, Grandpa) and the other “Dresses” (knees, collars, legs, armholes, zippers, boys, girls, monkey bars, lipstick, teeter-totter). Faye could see that Maeve had a wad of paper in her little hand, sweated up from the handling. She was waiting for her chance to slip a list into the casket before they took Jean away. It was the deal. You can give Grandma one last list, but you have to wear a dress to the service. And Maeve had a condition of her own: She wanted to write the list herself and keep the contents secret, like a wish. Faye had allowed it. Why would she not? Maeve knew her letters and was learning to use them to form words. If the list mattered at all, Jean would be able to read it.
With her eyes set on the priest delivering the sermon, Faye reached over to Maeve and gently drew her hand away from where she fussed with her hem. “Not much longer.”
When the priest nodded to the family, Faye asked Maeve if she was certain she wanted to go first and alone, and Maeve swore she did. They had all seen Jean’s body privately so it wasn’t Maeve’s first glimpse. “I have a bad feeling about this,” William said, as Maeve, hands in her dress pockets, scooted past Thomas and made her way on tiptoe to the casket. She glanced over her shoulder once, then again, and Fayeknew she’d made a mistake. It was too much. She stood, as did Thomas and William.
“I can do it!” Maeve shouted. The congregation seemed to cringe collectively.
Faye put her hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “I’ve got her. I’m sorry.”
Maeve, merely a foot from her grandmother’s cold face, grunted out her frustration and threw the wadded paper into the casket. It hit Jean’s icy cheek and bounced onto the dais. The congregation murmured with some mix of sympathy and scorn. Maeve’s face burned fury red. Faye knew what it was, that terrible despair, that embarrassment, as if even in death, Jean found a way to reject Faye by rejecting Maeve. She picked up the paper, then, squeezing Maeve’s hand, stuck it in next to Jean. “It’s okay. Grandma has your list now. She knows you love her.”
That word. She cast a glance at Jean’s body, her face made to look calm, her skin and visage stone cold. She had not loved Faye and had tolerated Maeve at best. Maybe all the love she had in her died with Fiadh. Faye had thrown herself at Jean as surely as Maeve had thrown the wad of paper. Jean had rejected them both. She joined Maeve in crying hot tears as the two of them returned to the pew.
