Mercy of St Jude (33 page)

There was only a breathy silence on the other end of the line.

“What colour were they?” Sadie asked.

“Huh? What?”

“The gloves, dear. You said Lucinda found some gloves?”

Hah! Gloves, my arse!

“Oh, right. Never mind, it doesn't matter.”

“Well, I'll tell him you called,” Sadie lied. “But he got more important things on his mind than gloves.” Sadie was beaming as she hung up the phone.

“What are you grinning about?” Debra asked.

“That there was Annie Byrne.”

“That witch. What did she want?”

“Something about gloves. Nothing important.”

“That crowd pisses me right off.”

Sadie looked fondly at her daughter. “And why is that?”

“So full of theirselves, thinks they're better than everybody.

Like I was at the store the other day and that Sara and Beth were over by the magazines, and I knows they were talking about me, tittering away when I walked past them.”

“That Annie's quite the tart from what I hears.”

Debra laughed humourlessly. “Nothing but a stuck-up tomboy.”

“Is she now?” Sadie watched her daughter carefully. “I suppose that comes from hanging around with them two cousins all the time.”

Debra slid another spoonful of food into Mark's mouth.

“Not much good comes of that, now does it?” Sadie added.

Debra glanced over at her mother, then back to her son to scoop up the excess food from his chin with the side of the baby spoon. “Open wide, Markie.” She shoved the spoon back in.

Annie slid the phone into its cradle. She turned to the window. A fresh layer of snow blanketed the ground. Not a single footstep broke the fragile surface. Perfect for making snow angels. You just needed someone to pull you up when you were done. You couldn't make a good snow angel on your own.

What was that devil of a mother of his talking about? Why hadn't he called her to let her know he was going back? And what did Mercedes need him for, anyway? Annie was tempted to confront her aunt, but she was still too embarrassed.

She returned to university before the end of Christmas break. As lost as she felt without Gerry beside her, she was grateful to drop the pretence that all was well. The first thing to catch her eye when she opened her door was the white envelope.

“Dear Annie,” he wrote, “I hate to have to tell you this way, but I don't know how else to do it. We can't see each other anymore. It's just the way things have to be. I hope you won't hate me. By the time you get this I'll be in Nova Scotia. I'll never forget us. Goodbye Annie.” It was signed, simply, “Gerry.”

She sat on her bed in a fog as fragments of memories ran through her head - their first night at Dewey's, the days, and especially the nights, spent together, the Boxing Day party. Her mind kept zeroing in on her aunt's face. What could have been so horrible that it rendered the woman speechless?

Confusion turned to anger. Why would he just up and leave? How could he get on that plane knowing how hurt she would be? It didn't make sense. She read the letter again. “By the time you get this,” he'd written. Gerry wouldn't have expected her back on campus this soon. Maybe he hadn't left for Nova Scotia yet. She rushed to the bathroom and scrubbed her face with cold water, then took the stairs two at a time.

As she passed through the front entrance of his residence, the click of the door latch resounded behind her. There was no one around to hear it. On the second floor she slowed her stride. A light shone from an open doorway.

Gerry lay on his bed, his eyes closed. His right hand, long fingers outstretched, rested on the small bear she'd given him for Christmas.

The act of waking up took him mere seconds, but it seemed to happen much slower. His eyelids rose. His eyes settled upon her face. The warmth in his smile sent her heart singing, so that although everything up to that moment had pointed to the end, she was so desperate for hope that she would have accepted the most farfetched explanation. But in the next instant, his eyes shot wide open.

“I got your note.” She held it out, let it drift to the floor.

He pushed himself off the bed. “Annie, I'm so sorry.”

His room, the place they'd loved and laughed together, now seemed devoid of life. A cluster of mismatched suitcases was stacked against the bare wall.

“What's the hell is going on?” she said.

“I'm transferring up to Dal.”

“Why now?” Her voice cracked. “Why not the fall like we planned?”

“I can't explain, Annie. Please just let this be.” His eyes were shining, the first tear waiting for the next blink.

Seeing him there, his face in such pain, his voice filled with sadness, and all of it so unexplainable, sent a surge of anger through her - at him, at herself, at whoever or whatever it was that was responsible. “How can I let it be?” she cried out, fear making her desperate. Yet she could tell that there was no point, that something bigger than her or them had insinuated itself into their lives. Still, she couldn't give up. “Talk to me, Gerry. Please.”

His gaze fell to the linoleum. “I fly out tonight.” It was a cold statement of fact.

Struck with a hurt she'd never known existed, she started to go. But she couldn't do it. She could not walk away. At the risk of any pride she had left she needed to know what had gone wrong.

She turned back, not caring that the tears were running down her cheeks. “Gerry, you have to tell me. What are you doing this for, what happened to us?”

His eyes pleaded with her, but whether it was for understanding or forgiveness she couldn't tell. He took a step towards her then stopped abruptly. A mask came over his face, and his voice was hard and bitter. “I guess you could blame Mercedes. She convinced me, said we're too related to be together.”

“But Gerry, we talked about that—”

“Oh, I know. But then she had the nerve to say I wasn't good enough for you anyway. That I was a Griffin and I should know better and just be grateful.”

“That's crazy.”

“The old bat threatened to call back my loan if I kept seeing you, and when I told her to piss off she had a little chat with my mother, said her son was a fool to wreck his chances on a girl. Then she swore she wouldn't lift a finger to help my brothers and sisters. Now that may not seem like much to you, but to my mother, Mercedes stands out as her only hope to get us out of the poverty that's been the Griffins' lot in life.”

He wasn't looking at her, but was instead shifting through some papers on his desk. Annie saw the airline ticket among them.

“Gerry, come on—”

“And the more I thought about it,” he persisted, “the more I realized that I'm sick to death of it all - the Byrnes and the Hanns, the holier-than-thou and smarter-than-thee attitudes, sick of trying to fit in. That's why I never wanted anybody to see us. I knew it wasn't right. So I've had it. I'm getting the hell out of here.”

He shuffled his suitcases together between himself and Annie. Her entire body yearned to touch him, to let the soft blades of his hair run through her fingers, to hold tight to the fine strands and never let them go, never let him leave her. She made a move towards him.

Taking a step back, he looked directly at her. “It's done, Annie. Let it go.” A firm voice. Not a tremble from those lips, lips she'd kissed a million times if dreams could count.

She studied the person before her, this Gerry Griffin she had known for most of her life, and loved for the only part that mattered anymore. This man who she had given every bit of herself to had transformed into an unfeeling bastard.

Somehow she made it back to her own room. Locking the door, she switched off the lights and slept like the dead. No dreams. No nightmares. Nothing.

Until five a.m, when she awoke in an instant. The previous day's events slammed back into her consciousness, sending an odd wavy sensation through her stomach. She stumbled to the bathroom. She would never have believed that love could make you sick, but there she was, puking into the toilet. She might even have laughed if she wasn't so busy throwing up. How corny was that, to actually get sick to your stomach over a guy?

Two days later, she was still sick, her gut a seesaw on a nonstop rollercoaster. Then, as she was trying to get to sleep that night, she sprang bolt upright. She grabbed her calendar from the dresser. Panic rose like fresh vomit in her throat.

Oh sweet Jesus, how could she have been so stupid?

19

The dorm echoed with the lifeless sounds of pipes and floorboards. Annie lay on her bed. She watched the clock and waited - for the weak winter light to filter through her window, for the nearest drugstore to open, for confirmation of a truth she already knew.

Abortion was not an option. Church on Sunday and daily during Lent, prayers every night and confession every month, the Stations of the Cross and the body and blood of Christ - these rituals framed her life. She was a Catholic, clearly fallible, but not a murderer. Annie had never questioned this doctrine before. She didn't now.

Gerry was constantly on her mind. He was always there, hovering in the next thought, the next breath. What if he knew she was pregnant? Surely he'd change his mind. On the other hand, if he cared so little, did she want him in her life? Still, didn't he simply have a right to know? He'd never said if he wanted children, but she suspected he did. As for her, there'd been daydreams of hazy domesticity far off in the future, a presumption of motherhood years away. She'd been more concerned with dreams of a career and an exciting life beyond St. Jude. A life with Gerry Griffin.

Now, here she was, mother-to-be of his first-born child, and she didn't even know his phone number.

Annie sat up abruptly. Of course! Mercedes would know how to reach him. In fact, she might want to have a word with him herself once she knew how things stood. Surely she would expect Gerry to do the proper thing by her niece.

Yes indeed. Mercedes Hann was the answer.

Mercedes did not seem surprised when Annie barged into the kitchen. Except for a hush to Rufus to stop barking, she continued inspecting the four loaves of bread that had been set to rise on the shelf above the stove. The dough was still low in the pans.

“Hello, Annie. I thought you'd gone back to school already.”

Annie glanced down the hallway. “Is Granddad here?”

“No, he's gone out.”

“Good. Now, could you please explain why you ran Gerry Griffin out of town?”

Mercedes stood still for a moment, then sat at the heavy oak table. “You and that Griffin boy do not belong together, and I told him so.”

“‘That Griffin boy'? Since when is he that to you?”

“Never mind that. The bottom line is I know more about these things than you do. You'll just have to trust me that you and Gerry could never be in love.”

Any last vestiges of respect or fear were gone in a flash of fury. “What the hell do you know about love? You've never loved anybody your whole life.”

Mercedes remained eerily calm. “Ann, I have only your best interests at heart.”

The situation felt surreal, like she was beating on a soundproof door. “How the Christ could you have my best interests at heart? You don't have a heart.”

Mercedes sat in her chair, apparently ready to bear the brunt of Annie's rage.

Annie felt a rush of desperation. Bending down, she looked Mercedes straight in the eye. For just a second, the reflection startled her. Then it was gone. “You have to change all of this back,” she said. “You have to phone Gerry and tell him you were wrong. I need him home.” The fear in her own voice frightened her. “I'm pregnant.”

For the first time the stern old face registered something other than calm. It was the same look she'd had the night she caught Gerry and Annie in the bedroom.

Mercedes stood up. She began to pace, fast, then slow, then stopping, her hand to her mouth, then pacing again, all while Annie waited for a miracle. She waited in vain.

“Well, you've gotten yourself into a fine pickle. In a family way and unmarried just like your sister.” Mercedes walked to the stove and made a show of studying the dough again. “At least Beth had a real boyfriend, not a cousin who left her.”

Annie threw her hands in the air. “He left because of you.”

“You want to blame me? Think about that for a minute, Ann. If that boy truly loved you, would he have gone away? What kind of love is that?”

“He was thinking about his family and you damn well know it. After all, you said you wouldn't help anymore if he stayed.”

The silvered head jerked up but she didn't look at Annie. “I said what?”

“You heard me. Old Sadie read him the riot act because you said you'd take back your loan, and that would be the last red cent any Griffin ever got from you.”

“Young
Gerard
surely can exaggerate. The truth is I might have implied I'd pull his funding but I doubt I would have. Besides, Sadie doesn't even know it's a loan. And I certainly didn't say anything about his family.” She lowered the oven door and began to arrange the loaves on the middle rack. “Given this fresh glimpse into his character, however, I'll have to reconsider. I'm not sure I want anything to do with a boldfaced liar. Then again, what can you expect from a Griffin?”