Forbidden Fruit (38 page)

When I was dressed, Sister Steele handed me a small yellow plastic container and lifted the lid. “There, Annie. Codeine, aspirin,
and these pills, the most important, called warfarin, a blood thinner.”

“How long do I take them for?”

“Six months. Four times a day without fail at regular intervals. Take them with plenty of water and keep your leg up for some
time afterward. Your life may depend on these.”

She gave me a rich warm hug and, as we separated, she touched my nose. “We fought a good fight, didn’t we?”

“We sure did. May I say —?” Since I couldn’t say it, my tears spoke for me.

Pat took my bags and I carried nothing but the yellow container and my pocketbook. We went to a little downstairs office where
Eamonn was waiting for a quiet word with me. “I’m going to give you two thousand dollars,” he said. “It’s every bit of savings
I have.”

“Thank you.”

“When you get home, I’ll be in touch and we’ll work out some kind of payment schedule.”

“For that you’ll have to deal with my father.”

He nodded miserably. “You don’t mind going to Helena’s?”

“For a couple of days.”

“Or three or four.”

We drove to St. Patrick’s. It was a golden September day, not more than two or three sheep shearings in the vast blue sky.
Even the home, bathed in warm sunshine, had lost its threatening look. Hope was painted on the world.

Morag and Shelagh came out to greet me as fast as their condition allowed and kissed me good-bye. With our arms around each
other in a circle we, the maligned, seemed part of a sacred sisterhood that the rest of the world would never comprehend.

In the nurse’s arms was my Peter in a white shawl. Had he changed? Not a bit, thank God: he still had Eamonn’s wispy brows
and bumpy mouth, and he was screaming.

“He’s a yeller.” Eamonn winced. “A real yeller.”

I looked and saw an angel.

“Can’t you see, Annie, he doesn’t want to leave?”

“You’d like to drive me away and leave him, wouldn’t you?”

“Indeed I would.”

The silver-haired nurse was saying, “This is a very unusual and highly intelligent little boy.”

“Sure,” I said proudly.

“I’ve been nursing for twenty-five years and no child has ever been so expressive. If he’s hungry, he lets you know. If he
wants his nappy changed, he tells you instantly.”

I nudged Eamonn. “He reminds me —”

“Shush,” and he pointed to Pat sitting in the car.

“So, Annie,” the nurse said, “listen to your son and you won’t go far wrong.”

As soon as Peter was placed in my arms, he nestled up to me and smelled me. He instantly stopped yelling and gave a huge sigh
of satisfaction.

Seeing Sister Ignatius in the background, I went over to her. Her hands were twitching as if she wanted to hold him but hadn’t
the courage to ask. I held Peter out to her and this childless old woman took him tenderly, kissed his forehead, and said,
“I pray for him every day.”

“Whatever the bursar says?”

She smiled. “I pray for her, too.”

Taking my son back, I said, “I hope your prayers for Peter have a better effect.”

Pat jumped out of the car. “Let me hold him.”

“Don’t touch that baby,” Eamonn warned. “It’ll scream and drive us mad all the way to Helena’s. Like the nurse says, that
baby
knows what he wants.”

“What
does
he want, Eamonn?” I said.

“His mother.”

During the drive to Helena’s, I was in heaven. This was his father’s car and his father was driving us and I was in the back
with Pat whom I liked and with my Peter.

When we arrived at Helena’s place in North Dublin not far from the airport, she received me warmly. “Oh, my,” she said, “that
baby’s beautiful.”

While she led me up to my room, Eamonn brought in my belongings. Having unpacked the baby’s things, I went down to the living
room, where Helena served tea.

Seeing me feed Peter, Helena said, “He’s not taking his bottle. That’s why he’s thin and still jaundiced.”

She added sugar to the milk to see if he would like that. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Eamonn on edge, saying
to himself, “Is he going to drink it?”

He got up and stood over me. “Some babies don’t like milk.”

“Is there no end to your expertise?” I said.

“The minute you get back home to the States —”

I said, “Will you please repeat that?”

“Maybe you can change his feed.”

I remember thinking,
Home, yes, I’m going home
. Then:
But where is borne? You can’t go home again
.

Eamonn did not stay long, and after Helena had shown me a few things about baby care, she took her children for a walk while
I lay on my bed with Peter.

When they returned, I stretched out my hand to take my pills. Everything was there except the vital blood thinners. They should
have jumped out at me because they were in a special container. Maybe I had put them in my pocketbook for safety. I went through
all my belongings. It took me a couple of hours and I kept saying to myself:
Eamonn took them. Who else
?

I went downstairs to tell Helena. She couldn’t help because her husband was away on business in the family car. “Call the
Rotunda,” she said.

“The pharmacy’s closed at this hour of the day.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

“Helena, if I don’t take two more of those pills today I could suffer a relapse.”

I called the Rotunda and they told me I could have some more pills but they had no way of getting them to me.

After the meal, Helena went to visit a neighbor and I called Inch. No reply. I called Killarney and he answered. I began calmly
with “Have a nice trip home?”

“I literally flew. Made it in two and a half hours.”

“And how are you?”

“Grand, and yourself?” I imagined him sitting comfortably at his desk, tossing my vial of pills in the air and catching them.

Changing the mood suddenly, I said, “Why’d you take my pills?”

“Your pills?” he spluttered. “Why would I do that?”

“Because it’s bad, that’s why.”

“You’re mad. Get off the line and look for them.”

“I’ve looked for hours. If I don’t get them soon I’ll get sick again. If that’s what you’re wanting —”

“I want no such thing.”

“I don’t care how you do it, Eamonn—through a courier, an ambulance, or a specially chartered archangel—but if you don’t,
I swear I’m going to do something dreadful to you.”

“Will you stop it, Annie, stop it.”

“You lousy son-of-a-bitch,” I said, real Tenth Avenue, “you’re the worst liar on God’s earth. So help me Christ, I’m going
to get a gun.”

“A gun?”

“And I’ll steal a car—I know how to wire cars—and I’m going to come to Killarney and shoot your yellow liver all over
the Palace walls.”

“Great God Almighty.”

“I hate your guts.”

“The devil’s got you by the throat. You are possessed, you are.”

“I’m not hearing you too well,” I said. “Where are you?”

He managed to get out, “On the floor.”

“What, for Christ’s sake, are you doing there?”

“I think I am dying.”

“You have been dying for as long as I’ve known you.”

“ ‘Tis true, that is when it started.”

“Get up, you hear me, man, get to your feet.”

“I cannot. You are going to kill me, isn’t that so?”

“Too true.”

“That is why I am trying to cope with the devil who has crawled down your throat.”

“Speak up.”

“I have my head in my hands and the phone is on my heaving chest. Wait till I grab it.… There, I have it now.”

I stifled the laughter that was beginning to well up inside me. That man would be laughing after he was dead. They would have
difficulty coffining him up because his corpse would be shaking with mirth.

“I never thought, Annie, you would murder me.”

“I never thought you would murder
me
. But you’ve made several attempts already.”

“Oh, Annie, is this some Wild West show? You’re going to get some hot rod and a gun and come and shoot the Bishop of Kerry
in his own house and spread his yellow liver all over the walls. What would become of my reputation?”

I started to laugh and he joined in. It was some time before I could tell him how serious my situation was. “Are you going
to get me my pills or not?”

“You crazy fool, if the alternative is to get shot up by you, I will.”

“I’ll await your call. In addition, I want to be out of here by tomorrow afternoon. Helena didn’t want to know when I said
my pills were missing. She’s probably part of the plot.”

“Oh, dear. She takes you into her house and you speak of her like that.”

“If I don’t get out of here soon, I’ll bash her.”

“First,” he roared, laughing, “you want to kill me, now you threaten to beat up Helena.”

“Call me back about the pills and have them here by eight tonight. I want you here tomorrow with my two thousand dollars and
I want a plane out of here.”

“Terms agreed. I’ll call you back on one condition.”

I half expected him to talk about adoption again but he said, “You must not beat Helena. As God is my judge, neither she nor
I had anything to do with your pills.”

“I reckon she knows it’s your baby.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Peter’s face looks as if yours has been painted on his. He’s even got the same birthmark Helena’s seen on you when you’re
in swimming togs.”

“God,” he screeched, “don’t let her change his nappy.”

“Another thing. I reckon you planned to have her adopt Peter.”

He put the phone down, and rightly. I had stepped over the mark. It was my anger speaking.

All the same, I let Helena bathe the baby. “Look at that birthmark,” I said. “So unusual.” I wanted someone to know who the
father was, and who better than she?

Within the hour, Eamonn called me back. “I’ve paid a hospital courier. The pills should be there by about eight. Promise me
one thing.”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lose them this time.”

“What about the flight out?”

“Impossible tomorrow, but I can book you a seat the day after. But I warn you, it’s Friday the thirteenth.”

“How could my luck be worse than it is?”

“It leaves at eleven
A.M.
from Dublin. You’ll get your two thousand dollars and I’ll be driving you to the airport.”

With my heart in my mouth, I said, “Do me a favor, Eamonn, don’t bother. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

It was the biggest lie in my entire life.

“I know how you feel, Annie.”

I was about to yell, “Come, you bastard, don’t let me leave without good-bye,” when he said, “How else will I get you your
money?”

Now that I knew he had made up his mind to come, I said, “What’s wrong with a courier?”

“I am coming in person and you and your devil combined will not stop me. I received you into this country and I’m sending
you home.”

“That’s so touching.”

“Say what you like, Annie, but I aim to see Peter off and I want to bless him.”

“Bless our son?
You
? This is too hypocritical.”

He said with that insinuating softness that so often crept into his voice, “This was never against him, nor, come to that,
against you, Annie.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“Know something else? You might make a damn good mother, after all. Any woman who fights that hard for her baby…”

“Are you telling me, Eamonn, you made a mistake?”

In my mind’s eye I saw him doing that famous sprinkling movement with his upheld fingers. “What gave you that idea?” he said.

O
N FRIDAY MORNING, I dressed in Levi’s, white lace blouse, green sweater, and moccasins.

Eamonn appeared about nine. He had a wide-eyed look about him, like a puzzled schoolboy. He came up to my room, closed the
door, and bent over Peter. He prayed over him, blessed him, and kissed him.

I knelt behind him while he did this, put my hands around him, and hugged him. “I’m so sorry,” I said, “that things went the
way they did. But I wouldn’t have fought so hard for the baby if I didn’t love you.”

“You think I don’t know that, Annie?”

“I knew you knew.”

“I guess we knew most things about each other.”

“That’s why we fought so hard and hurt each other so much. Neither of us had any defense against the other.”

“That’s what love does, Annie.”

Yes
, I thought,
you can only be really hurt by those who love you
.

I got up from the floor.

“One thing, Annie, and be honest with me just this once.” The fingers of my friend-foe were jumping about in all directions.
“Were you really going to shoot me?”

“I was so mad with you I might have done anything.” After a moment’s thought: “No.”

“I’m glad.”

“I probably would have stabbed you.”

“Stabbed me?” he screeched, falling back as if the knife had just got him right in the belly. “You say such terrible things
and in front of that
baby
. You’ll ruin his thoughts.”

“Aren’t you the best father, thinking only of his good?”

He turned to me and I kissed him before he could speak. On his forehead and on each moist eye. Trying to remember the impress
of him on me, of his being on my being. Trying to eternalize the fragile beauty of the passing moment like a fossilized leaf.
“I really love you,” I said. “I almost feel like falling at your feet begging you to come with me or hoping you’ll tell me
not to go.” I pressed my fingers to his lips. “It’s okay—I know it can’t happen.”

He had his hands on my head and he kept repeating, “Thank you, thank you.”

“Eamonn,” I said sharply.

With big round eyes: “What in God’s name is the matter?”

“I know what you’re doing. Don’t deny it.”

“What am I doing, know-all?”

“Blessing me.”

“So?”

“I don’t want now or ever a bishop’s blessing.”

“Not even to help you overcome your fear of flying?”