Ashes of Fiery Weather (46 page)

The woman had gestured for Eileen to come closer. The bar was noisy.

“They won't tell you a thing over the phone,” she said. “They'll say the records are sealed and hang up on you. But I'll tell you this. Write them a letter. Do a little bit of begging. Send them money. I don't mean a twenty-dollar bill either.”

Eileen took a long swallow of beer. “How much money?”

“As much as you can spare,” the woman said.

It was on Easter Sunday, which Eileen spent with her mother and Nathaniel, all of them trying not to look at Sean's empty chair, that she thought of Marian, opening the nuns' mail.

The following Saturday, she took a chance and knocked on the convent door. Indeed, Marian answered.

“Don't ask me why your prayer wasn't answered,” she said. “I'm sorry you're pregnant.”

“I don't know why—”

“That's what girls come here for.” Marian shrugged. “What are you going to do?”

“I'm not pregnant,” Eileen said impatiently. “It worked.”

Marian's mouth dropped open. “Oh. That's unusual.”

“Listen, I've written a letter to Ireland, and I asked them to send their response to me here at the convent,” Eileen said. “I haven't mailed it yet. I wanted to ask you first.”

“You can't get mail to your house? Is it a man you're writing to?”

“No,” Eileen said, annoyed, though she knew that was a logical guess. She'd tried to think of a lie, but only the truth made sense. The letter was to the home in Ireland where she'd been born, asking for the name of her birth mother. Her mother—Delia—would recognize the return address. Eileen did not want her to know. As for a post office box, she'd never used one before. It seemed too easy for a letter to be put in the wrong one. In exchange, Eileen would give Marian an address where she could write to Sean. Nobody else had it.

Marian studied the tips of her shoes. When she looked up, her face was pink.

Eileen wanted to laugh. Had she actually thought her feelings were a secret?

“I would do it for nothing, Eileen,” she said. “Everybody should know who their mother is.”

“I knew you would,” Eileen said. “This isn't a bribe. It's a thank-you.”

By the end of May, Eileen no longer stopped by the convent on Saturdays to see if the letter had arrived. She was weary of Marian's small head shake and pitying stare. She lay awake at night wondering if her letter had even made it to Ireland, or if it had been stolen by somebody who figured out there was money in it. Unsure of how dollars-to-pounds worked, or if an American check would be any good, she'd sent cash. Stupid, she told herself over and over. If they cashed a check, she would have at least known.

One rainy Saturday in June, she and her mother were eating dinner, mostly in silence, when the doorbell rang. Eileen set down her fork. Delia, her face stark, got up without a word and went to the door. Eileen spit a mouthful of meatloaf into a napkin, unable to swallow.

Her mother returned to the kitchen, Marian behind her.

“You can leave the dishes, Eileen. I'll get them.”

Wordlessly, Eileen led Marian upstairs to her bedroom and shut the door. Marian reached into her purse and pulled out a cream-colored envelope.

Eileen took it and sat down on her bed. Not Sean, she was still thinking. Not Sean.

“I should've probably called, but—” Marian said.

“What did you tell my mother?” Eileen asked. She looked down at the envelope.

My mother.

“I said I was visiting a friend nearby and thought I'd stop in and say hi.”

Eileen supposed it hardly mattered. Marian could have told her the truth and Delia would not have registered it, too relieved that it was not army officers with a telegram.

“I'll go,” Marian said.

“No, stay for a few minutes at least. She'll think you came here to sell me pot or something.”

Marian laughed.

“Might as well get this the fuck over with.”

Eileen hastily opened the envelope, ripping it, and pulled out a single sheet of paper.

Dear Miss O'Reilly,

Thank you for your inquiry, but I am unable to answer your question.

Adoption records are sealed. What we offer the girls who come to Rossamore is assurance that their children will be sent to good homes, and that their own privacy will be protected. To give you her name would be a violation of that promise, and the law.

I understand your curiosity, and though I was not here at the time you were born, I spoke with a sister who does remember your birth mother. You can be assured that she was from a good family who were much pained by the circumstances she found herself in. They were grateful to resolve the situation through her term at Rossamore so that she could then go on with her life, which, from what I understand, she has done.

Thank you for the photograph you sent. It is indeed gratifying to learn that one of our children has grown up so well in America. Sister Bartholomew said she would have known you anywhere.

With regards to your generous donation, we thank you sincerely. Know that it will go a long way in providing for children who are in our care, as you once were.

Yours in Christ,
Sister Francis

Marian was standing against the wall. Eileen handed the letter to her. Marian read it, glancing up at Eileen twice, and handed it back.

“Um, how much money did you give them?”

“Two hundred fifty dollars,” Eileen said.

“God, Eileen. Where did you get that kind of money?”

“Fifty was mine, saved up from work. The rest I borrowed.” Eileen tossed the letter on the desk.

“From Sean?” Marian asked.

Eileen hesitated, then nodded.

Sean had kept the money from his job bartending at Lehane's in a fireproof box on his closet shelf, so if he ever felt like taking off, he could just go. The day before he left for basic training, Sean told her he was going to buy a motorcycle when he came back. Then he'd ride it all the way to California.

Eileen lay back on her bed. “You can go now, Marian. I won't be bothering you anymore.”

September 16, 2001

In the center of the Brooklyn Bridge, where the pedestrian walkway widened to a platform, the five of them stopped. Norah's sister broke away and walked to the railing, and Norah moved up close behind her. Eileen and her nieces stayed back.

Maggie and her aunt arrived from Ireland this morning. At first the plan was for Aoife to visit the Pile. Norah had asked Aidan to escort them, but he refused. It was his job to find Noelle and all those like her. Eileen cautioned Norah not to argue with him. He did not need another reason to be angry right now. She offered to go in his place.

He'd been working the Pile all day and into the night, only to head back again early the next morning, ignoring his mother's pleas to take a day off and get some rest.

Eileen was also staying until after dark, but now, after a week, it was clear that nobody else was coming out alive. Quinn had been going to Norah's after school and staying for dinner. Rose's school was still closed, with no indication of when it would reopen.

Like her nephew, like all firefighters, Eileen would leave the Pile only reluctantly. The Pile was the real world. Wide awake, eating or reading the list of missing firefighters or looking at your kid, an image of it jumped in front of your eyes. Better to be on it, digging, than to be surprised by it.

In the car on the way in, Aoife changed her mind. She didn't want to see it. Maggie quietly suggested they go up on the bridge.

Eileen had not seen Maggie since she left for Ireland.

She looked younger than when she left. Partly it was her hair, which she'd let grow way past her shoulders. She was too thin, and she was quiet. Eileen hoped that a year in Ireland had given her a way forward, but she could not read her niece's silence. It might be shock and grief, or it might be the same stillness from after the baby, at first constant and then not, but never gone. Because of her own daughter, Eileen recognized it for what it was. Watchfulness. That particular way mothers have of being busy, getting done what they need to get done, while listening, always listening for a call or cry.

Maggie and Rose stood together watching their mother and aunt.

There were a few people on the bridge taking pictures of the city. Several glanced at Aoife and backed away, lowering their cameras and bowing their heads. They nodded respectfully at Eileen too, though she was sure they were mistaking her for a paramedic.

Aoife stared across the water. Norah stayed close behind her, as though she were afraid Aoife might jump. The two were only a year apart, but today the age difference looked as great as the one between Maggie and Rose. Maybe getting closer would help Aoife believe. Eileen had been noticing that with the victims' family members. With nothing to bury, their loved ones seemed to have gone to a place from which they could perhaps return. But seeing the destruction outside, beyond television, was making it real.

Still, a lot of fire families vowed to hold off on the funeral. When a firefighter was found, if he couldn't be identified by sight, then he could by the name on his turnout coat, or if there wasn't one, the company was often revealed by his helmet or his radio or a scatter of nearby tools. In that case, the man's company was summoned to bring him out. With the civilians, it was much more difficult.

Eileen felt a tug and turned to see Maggie with a fistful of her sleeve.

“I've been too scared to ask this, and because nobody's said, I think it can't be good. By the numbers alone, I think it can't be good,” she said. “Danny?”

“He's alive,” Rose said.

Maggie inhaled and then breathed a long sigh.

Relief, Eileen knew, that she wouldn't have to break that news someday.

“But—” Rose looked at Eileen.

“What?” Maggie asked.

Eileen answered, “Both his brothers are missing.”

Aoife turned from the railing. “Could you see them from here?”

Norah nodded, and Maggie said “Yes,” almost inaudibly. Rose pressed her face into Maggie's shoulder. Maggie kissed the top of her head.

Before last week, if Eileen had overheard a tourist ask such a thing, she would have laughed. From this distance, with the violence not apparent, it was as if the towers simply vanished in some peculiar magic trick, leaving nothing behind but the quiet drift of smoke rising from the skyline.

Eileen found herself in charge of welcoming the family members of the men they'd lost.

In the two weeks or so right after, they came to the firehouse to wait for news. Now, in October, the visits were tours. The wives and old-enough kids and the parents and siblings wanted to see his locker, and sit in his chair at the kitchen table and on his bed. They asked exhausting questions.

How did he spend his downtime? What's your favorite story about him? When did you last see him? How much did he know? Was he scared? Did he mention me? Is there a letter for us in his locker?

Mrs. Jimenez came to the firehouse alone. Eileen told her that Alex liked to work out in the weight room in the basement. He liked to shoot hoops in the yard. As the probie, he had to do the dishes, and he stacked them in the drain with crazy precision. Somebody had joked that he must be a mama's boy, and he'd said, “That's right,” without embarrassment.

“Show me the yard?” Mrs. Jimenez asked.

She and Eileen walked from the apparatus floor into the kitchen. Silence fell and the guys jumped up. They'd been reading some of the letters the firehouse received from all over the country. There were a bunch of teddy bears on the table too. None of them could figure out why the hell so many people decided to send teddy bears. Petrie had put himself in charge of snipping off the bears' red-white-and-blue ribbons to make them less September 11–ish, so they could bring just a regular fucking teddy bear home to their kids.

Mrs. Jimenez stood in the yard in silence, her head down.

Eileen waited, her hands in her pockets.

The Friday after the attacks, Eileen had visited Mrs. Jimenez and told her the details of the morning. They were in the North Tower, just starting the climb, when the other tower fell, though they didn't know that then. She told how she'd searched for Alex, but didn't mention that she'd screamed his name, like she was his mother and not his lieutenant.

Alex! Alex! Alex!

“I told him to take the test,” Mrs. Jimenez said, clutching a fistful of tissues. “He said, ‘Oh, Mommy, that's for the Irish. They don't let anybody else on.' I said, ‘Who ever told you that anyone is better than you?'”

“He was a good firefighter,” Eileen said. One of the best ways to keep from crying was to look directly into the sun. The pain confused the eyes.

Her probie. Her responsibility. He'd been beside her one minute and so completely gone the next that they'd yet to find him.

“Ma'am? Can I show you something out front?” Eileen asked.

There was no driveway, so they went back through the kitchen. The guys jumped to attention again. Chris Jones and Tim Cassidy were out front, straightening up the shrine of candles, thank-you cards, flowers.

“Beat it, guys,” Eileen said.

With nods to Mrs. Jimenez, they disappeared inside.

Two memorial plaques were set on the brick wall of the firehouse, side by side. There would be seven more. When that would happen, where they would go, Eileen couldn't yet say.

James Walsh, December 28, 1884. Sean Patrick O'Reilly, April 5, 1983.

Eileen touched Sean's name.

“This is my brother,” she said. “And for a long time, I thought it was my fault.”

Eileen liked the fact that Mrs. Jimenez didn't say, “No, no, that can't possibly be true.”