Ashes of Fiery Weather (19 page)

“Let me show you something.” Delia took an
Irish Eagle
article out of her purse and handed it to him. It had been published almost four months ago. Luke hadn't written it.

She watched Nathaniel's face as he read it.

IRISH CHILDREN FIND NEW LIVES IN AMERICA

Accompanying the article was a photograph of four solemn, round-cheeked children standing in a row, right after their arrival at La Guardia Airport, about to meet their new parents. They were all two or three years old, and they'd all been born in the same Irish home for unwed mothers in Mayo, which was run by nuns.

Nathaniel handed it back to her. “Why, heart?”

Delia returned it to her purse. She explained how she kept imagining her and Luke dying. Cancer and a car accident. A fire from which Sean was rescued but she and Luke died. Her mother had been an only child. Her father had been orphaned young, he and his sisters split up after. Jack never saw them again. Perhaps there were cousins, but Delia didn't know their names, much less where to find them. Luke's family in Ireland were out of the question. His two sisters were not married, and were not, according to Luke, the sort to take in an orphaned child.

“You're the only one on earth I'd want to have him. And no court would ever give him to you,” Delia said.

A single man. A Jew. A Catholic child. Nathaniel nodded slowly.

Sean would end up in foster care in New York. If he had a brother or sister, then at least he would not be all alone.

“What does Mr. O'Reilly say about this?” Nathaniel asked.

“I was hoping we'd take a trip to Ireland this summer to visit his family, and then we could go to one of the—the places.”

“You think he'll see some little cherub and fall in love?”

“Well, it doesn't matter,” Delia said. “He won't go. I write to his mother and send pictures of Sean. But I don't think Luke cares if he ever sees them again.”

“I know I'm hardly the one to give advice about being practical, but if your husband doesn't want to adopt—”

“I found another home in Galway. I didn't want to go to the one in the article. They're probably being flooded with calls. I wrote a letter and they told me that they needed a letter from my priest. I got Petey—Father Halloran—to write on my behalf.”

Nathaniel frowned.  “A reference letter?”

“It says Delia and Luke O'Reilly are practicing Catholics.”

“Which you are not. Which this priest Halloran knows. Why would he lie for you?” Nathaniel said, and then, “He's in love with you.”

“He did have a crush on me when we were kids.”

“But even if the Irish don't know New York enough to realize, when the agency comes to inspect your home, aren't they going to find it odd that you take the subway into Brooklyn to go to Mass every Sunday?”

“Nobody's said anything to me about a home visit. As far as I can tell, the nuns decide who gets to adopt. Based on the letter.” Delia had to look away from the disbelief, and disapproval, on Nathaniel's face.

“Delia! My God. You've gone ahead and done this already?”

Without telling him first, he meant. She tugged her skirt over her knees. “I just—I don't know. I wanted to.”

“One letter from a priest and they send you a baby? You could be a convict or a madwoman. Your husband could be a drunk and a wife beater.”

Delia shrugged. “The laws are different in Ireland, that's all. It's much simpler there. That letter from Petey, our baptismal and marriage certificates showing we are Catholic, a letter from a doctor saying we're not ‘shirking natural parenthood'—that's obvious—and an affidavit saying we will give the child a Catholic education.”

“Are they going to call you every few years to make sure this child is attending Holy Rosary of Saint Sacred Heart?”

“‘Holy Rosary of Saint Sacred Heart.' Very good.”

Nathaniel was quiet for several minutes. “You gave them money.”

Delia hugged herself.  “A donation. For airfare and new clothes for her to travel in. For processing the paperwork. They'll issue her a passport to travel on and they'll send her birth certificate and I figure maybe the consent form that the—the birth mother signed. Then we have to adopt her here. It's a formality, from what I understand.”

Nathaniel nodded, and silently they watched Sean pick something up off the grass. He grinned and ran toward them, his hands cupped. A rock? A dead bug?

“I hope you find her,” Nathaniel said.

Delia reached over and squeezed his hand just as Sean reached them.

January 1952

Delia saved the letter to open after supper. Luke had seen it; she knew he must have. First thing he did when he came home from work was leaf through the mail. She'd left the letter there, distinctive with its air mail stamps. Rossamore Abbey, County Galway, Ireland.

After she'd gotten Sean to bed, which took three stories and four songs, she joined Luke in the living room, where he sat in his armchair reading the newspaper. When she entered, Luke looked up with an expression she often caught on his face, something like surprise and disappointment. Delia retrieved the envelope from the table by the door and sat on the couch. She opened it carefully and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. A black-and-white photograph fell into her lap. She picked it up with a small gasp. A little girl sat on a stone wall, a woman's arm supporting her. Her head was turned slightly, her eyes fixed on the woman. Delia touched her pinkie to the baby's cheek before she leaned over and gave the picture to Luke, who hesitated before he accepted it.

She read aloud:

“Dear Mr. and Mrs. O'Reilly.”

She stopped. “E-i-l-i-s?” she asked. “I don't even know how to say that. E-liss?
Eliss
was born on October 2, 1949.”

Delia skimmed the letter, looking for the information she cared about most. “Eilis and five other children will leave from Shannon Airport on 20 January and arrive at La Guardia in New York at three in the afternoon. The children will be accompanied by two attendants, who will see each child safely to his or her new parents.”

Delia looked up. “We have a daughter. Sean has a sister.”

“
January 20?
In two weeks?” Luke said. “This is insane, Delia.”

She decided to ignore the mounting panic in his voice.

“Maybe if we adopted here, we'd get an infant, but it would take
years.
A three-year-old is fine. She'll have to adjust, but after a while, she won't remember.”

Delia looked down at the picture, at the bare arm around the little girl. It could not be a nun holding her. It might be some kind of attendant, like the one who would be flying with the children, but instinctively Delia knew that it was not. The children at Rossamore stayed with their birth mothers, apparently from birth until the children left the country. The
Irish Eagle
article had had a line she'd chosen not to dwell on: “The children said goodbye to their mothers, and left for America.”

“E-liss,” Delia said out loud. “E-liss O'Reilly. It's pretty but maybe not for America. Nobody will know how to say it. It says in the letter to let them know if we're going to change it. They'll have the attendant start calling her the new name on the plane. We can pick something close. Elizabeth? Eileen? Ellen?”

Luke folded the
Daily News
and placed it on the small table beside his armchair.

“Delia—”

“We'll have to get a bed for her. A bed or a crib? We can put her in our room at first, and then maybe she and Sean can share. But Luke, we can't stay in this apartment now. It's barely big enough for three of us as it is. A boy and girl can't share a room.”

“You have to write to them and tell them we can't take her.”

If he had said it loudly, she would have thought it was fear. But he was calm.

“She's on her way,” Delia said, as though a baby girl were inside her.

Luke stared at her, then sighed and went to the window and slowly lit a cigarette. He tossed the lighter onto the small side table. She wanted to snap at him not to leave it where Sean could pick it up.

“There's a woman I met during the war. We didn't stay in touch after. There was no reason to.”

“The war?” Delia repeated. “The
war?
”

Luke turned around then. He was backlit against the window so she couldn't read his expression.

“This is the woman you write to,” Delia said.

“Charlotte, yes,” Luke said. His lips moved to smile. Delia watched as he caught himself.

He looked away and then back in her direction. “It's not working for us. I can't spend my whole life doing this. We need to get a divorce.”

“Divorce?” Delia said. “We can't
divorce.
”

“We can't stay married,” Luke said.

“You couldn't marry her in the church if you got divorced.”

“She's not Catholic,” Luke said.

“Your family! Your parents, her parents—”

“We don't care if they never speak to us again,” Luke said.

For the barest second, Delia admired his refusal to remain unhappy for the rest of his life.

“Why didn't you stay with her right after the war, when you barely knew me? We've been married for nine years. Why wait until we had a child? It wasn't because you were trying to make it work. You're never home. You treat your son like he's a stray dog I took in.” Delia covered her mouth with her hand. She'd said it to be as mean as she could, but once the words were out, she saw the truth in them.

Luke shook his head. “I should have left a long time ago. I'm not sorry that we had Sean. I'll never be sorry for him.”

He was lying. Delia crossed her arms over her chest. “She was married too? That's why you came home?”

Luke looked at her, startled.

“Oh. Now she's gotten divorced or she's been widowed. She's free. You're going to make yourself free.”

“You'll find someone else too. I know you will,” Luke said.

Delia held up the letter. “Nobody's going to want me.”

“You can find someone who doesn't—who doesn't mind.”

At least he didn't suggest outright that she find a nice widower who needed a mother for children already born.

“I'll send you money for Sean.”

“Sean and Eilis,” Delia corrected.

Luke stood up straight. “Jesus Christ, I told you, you have to write and tell them we can't take her.”

Delia had never miscarried. But as she gazed at the rug, she almost expected to see the blood coursing down her legs and spreading over the beige carpet.

“I never meant—when we met, everything that was happening—we got caught up. It's better we fix it now than in another twenty years, when it'll be too late for us to start over.” Luke spoke firmly, as though he'd finally found the tone he'd decided on when rehearsing this moment.

Luke disappeared into the bedroom. Delia heard the closet door open. She heard the clatter as he took the suitcase down from the closet shelf and tensed, waiting for Sean to wake up and wander out of his bedroom across the hall, the room that used to be Luke's office, scared and looking for her. But Sean didn't appear.

Drawers opened and closed. Luke's clothes rustled as he packed them. She hadn't moved when Luke came back to the living room holding the suitcase.

“You're leaving for England
tonight?
”

“Not yet, no. I have things to sort out with my uncle first. And we have to start the—the proceedings. I have a lawyer, and you'll need one too. I'll pay the rent for the next three months. A little longer if you need me to.”

Delia clutched her letter, wrinkling the paper. Three months? How about forever? She didn't have a job. Then she realized he assumed she would evict her tenants and move back to Brooklyn.

“What on earth are you going to do for a living in England?” Delia asked.

“I'll figure it out,” Luke said without meeting her eyes.

So she had money, this woman. “No more writing?” she said.

Luke shrugged. “That wasn't working out, was it? Time to stop kidding myself, about a lot of things.”

“Yes, like your wife and son,” Delia said. “What the hell am I supposed to tell Sean about where you went? Are you going to write to him? Visit?”

“Tell him the truth,” Luke said. “We'll work it all out after I'm settled. He can maybe spend summers with me.”

“I'm not sending my son to spend whole summers across the ocean with you and your mistress.”

“She's going to be my wife,” Luke said, and turned to go.

Delia now understood that in his mind, he'd left a thousand times already. Sean knew, Delia realized. Her baby. He'd already learned not to seek his father's attention. Around Luke, Sean was watchful, quiet. Even as he accepted the vague inquiries—“Were you a good boy today?”—and the distracted pats on the head his father doled out, Sean was waiting for Luke to go away and leave the two of them alone.

Delia called, “Luke? Listen. I won't fight it. I'll sign anything you want.”

She'd gotten his attention. He turned around, tense, listening.

“The Irish girl—stay until the adoption is final. Or come back when we have to go to court to finalize it.”

The disbelief on his face nearly made her laugh.

“My own son is one thing, but Jesus, I'm not supporting somebody's bastard, Delia.”

“Don't call her that!”

“That's what she is! That's why she's up for adoption, isn't it?” Luke said. “What if they find out I've gone and they take her away from you?”

“They won't.” Delia was almost sure of it. “I'm not asking you to support her. I'll figure that out. If I don't protest, if I agree to everything, think how much faster you can remarry.”