Mercy of St Jude (36 page)

“The things we do for family, eh?”

“Yeah. Like Pat.”

“Pat? What about him?” She keeps her eyes down, focused on the ground. Please, dear God, tell me he kept his mouth shut.

“It was the year you moved out west. I was home for Christmas and stopped in at the bar. And there were the Hann boys, feeling no pain. No sooner did Pat set eyes on me than he starts ranting on about what an arsehole I was and how it was all my fault you left. Aiden was right behind him too, with that stupid smirk on his face.”

Annie can picture it, Pat fighting mad, Aiden letting his older brother stir things up while he, as usual, stood back and enjoyed the spectacle.

“Then Pat mutters something about promising to break my neck and takes a few swipes at me but he's too drunk to do any damage. Couple of guys hauled him away but I just went on home. Last thing I wanted was to fight with Pat, drunk or sober.”

“I really am sorry, Gerry. We always looked out for each other, you know, the three of us, since we were kids. They're more like brothers than cousins.” The thought comes immediately -
and you don't sleep with your cousin
. She forces herself to ask the question. “How did you feel about it, our being so closely related, after what we did?” She watches his face, so strong in its new maturity.

“I tell you, I didn't feel ashamed.” His voice is defiant. “I know I was supposed to. I tried telling myself that what we did was wrong but I could never convince myself it was wicked or sinful or any of the words my mother used that night.”

“She was that mad, eh?”

“Beside herself! You wouldn't believe what came out of that mouth.”

“But that's not fair. We didn't know any better. Why was she blaming you?”

Gerry hesitates. “She wasn't blaming me. She was blaming you, plus your whole entire family. She's always had such a grudge, about Paddy and Farley, and about your parents, and that she was a cousin and nobody ever invited her into the fold.

She used to rant on about it sometimes, call you all mental cases, especially when she was drinking.”

Annie is not sure how to react. For one thing, the Griffins have always been the ones with the reputation for mental instability. For another, Sadie forever proclaimed to be a teetotaller. “I know what you're thinking.” Gerry nudges her. “Them crazy Griffins, queer as three-dollar bills, them are.”

She laughs lightly. He takes her hand. Her heart leaps with the gentle pressure, the feel of his skin touching hers.

“Now it's your turn,” he says. “How did you feel when you found out?”

His fingers caress the back of her hand. She fights the urge to tuck into him, to bury her face in the warm skin of his neck.

When she is slow to respond, he insists. “Come on, Annie.

There's been too much time, too many questions. Can we just be honest?”

She moves her hand away. “You want honesty? Fine.” She is surprised at the anger in her voice. “Of course it was wrong.

It'd be worse than sleeping with Pat or Aiden.”

His face tightens but he says nothing.

“But it's not the same, I know that. The thought of doing it with either one of them is just…I can't even think about it.”

She shudders at the thought. “But I could never feel that way about me and you. I know I'm supposed to, but I don't.” Her voice has shrunk to a harsh whisper.

She slides off the rock and walks towards the trees, opening her eyes wide in an attempt to stop the tears. She feels him come up behind her.

His hand touches her hair. She knows she should move away but she is as rooted to the ground as the trees that surround them. His fingers stroke her cheek. He turns her gently and folds her in his arms. Beyond resisting, she inhales the familiar scent of his skin, feels again the safe, strong rhythm of his heart.

Wrapped in a world of sense and touch and earth and trees, they draw apart just enough to find each other for that last kiss, the one they never had, as she allows the years this one forbidden moment on a hidden hillside by the graveyard in St. Jude.

But for Annie, a moment is all it can ever be. The memory of what happened to her, to them, to a baby that still lived in her heart, is too much. A vital part of her will grieve forever over what she did, her belief in its necessity notwithstanding. She steps away from his reach.

“Annie? Isn't there any way?” Tears glisten in his dark eyes. “What if we never had children, then couldn't we be together? Nobody knows, right? We were lucky before, we'll just make sure from here on out.”

She feels her body stiffen. He must notice for suddenly he grips her arms so hard it hurts. “Annie? What is it?” His anxious eyes search hers.

The grief strikes so hard it's as if the abortion happened the day before. And suddenly, she knows. This is the intangible something that has been with her since that day, this empty ache, this blank space in her soul. This will always be between them.

“Annie? You were never pregnant, were you? Oh Jesus Almighty, tell me!”

She hears the fever in his voice, the guilt, the regret. It's a story of hurt that is well known to her but not one she wishes on Gerry. In all the daydreams and nightmares that have come unbidden since the night he left her, she has never wished him such pain as that.

They have shared their final moment. She means to keep it, for both of them.

“Good God no, Gerry.” For the first time she empathizes

with Mercedes. Some truths should not be shared. Sometimes a lie is necessary. “It's just that all my life I've wanted children.

I can't give that up.”

His eyes hold hers and won't let go.

She stands her ground.

Annie feels a measure of peace for the first time in years.

She has not been wrong about the only man she has ever been able to love, and she will no longer have to go through life constantly trying to hate Gerry Griffin. Reaching up, she lets her fingers trace his face, from his brow to his eyes, down his cheek to his lightly bristled chin, across his mouth to the fading scar on his lip.

Then she walks away.

In need of solitude before facing her family, Annie goes to the church. Choosing a pew near the back, she kneels and bows her head. Her hands find each other, the fingers interlacing. Marble statues and stained glass surround her, familiar, peaceful. In recent years, except for Christmas and the occasional wedding or baptism, she has left the church, and God, to others. She breathes in the aromatic echoes of incense and lemon oil and realizes she has missed it, despite a childhood spent whining about Lent and Easter and having to go to Mass “every frigging day for forty days.” Smiling at the memory, she touches her right hand to her forehead, then down to her chest, to her left shoulder then her right. She's ready to go home.

When she arrives at her parents' house, the party is in full progress. The first few drinks have been downed and the crowd has moved on to sombre toasts and overblown memories. The Murphy brothers lead a sing-along of dirges in the kitchen, and her Uncle Frank, well in his cups, is in the middle of a long-winded recital about some other poor soul who had the bad luck to die.

All in honour of Mercedes. With the earth still settling around her coffin, Annie thinks she must be doing somersaults in her grave.

Then again, maybe not.

Pat is there of course, surprisingly sober, his enunciation clear as a bell as he asks how she's feeling about it all.

“A little shell-shocked, actually.” She glances around. “Quite the send off, eh? Wonder what she'd think.”

He laughs. “If she was here, she'd be gone by now.”

“Isn't that the truth? Where's Aiden?”

“Him and your father are out back smoking cigars.” He takes a small sip of beer.

“Cigars? Tying one on, are they?”

“Three sheets to the wind, the pair of them.”

Annie sizes him up. “What's slowing you down?”

He studies his beer bottle. “I got to make a change, Annie.”

“Ever think about moving away? Lots of jobs out west.”

“Possible, I suppose. But I was thinking more of doing something else, something altogether different.” He lowers his voice. “Maybe going back to school.”

“Wow, talk about different.”

He grins. “Not like I ever excelled at the books.”

“Not like you ever tried.”

“Probably time I did, eh? I'm twenty-six years old and going nowhere.” He plunks the bottle of beer on the table. “I don't want to be doing this in ten years.”

“Hey, you don't have to sell me. I think it's a great idea.”

“You do? I mean, there's lots would think I couldn't do it.”

“Like Aunt Mercedes, you mean?” The name feels different on Annie's tongue, not quite right, but better than before.

Pat's shrug looks like a gesture of surrender. “I think she had a point. About me wasting my life.”

“You agreeing with Mercedes Hann? This is a day of surprises.”

“Maybe so. But maybe that's why I couldn't stand her. I knew she was right when she called me a no-good Irish Paddy.”

“There's nothing wrong with an Irish Paddy, Pat. It was all in her mind. So,” she says quickly to change the subject, “what kind of school you talking about?”

He hesitates, then says sheepishly, “Cooking school.”

“Sure that's a great idea. But what brought this on suddenly?” “I hate fishing. I throws up my guts most days, and with Aiden gone, it's no fun at all anymore.” He eyes her shyly.

“What do you think? Is it too late?”

“Go on, it's never too late, but you better get on it. Like you said, you're not getting any younger.”

He grins and picks up his beer. “I'll run it by Aiden, see what he got to say.”

“Good luck with that,” she says to his back as he walks away.

She goes in search of Lucinda and Callum. They're in the living room putting everything back in its rightful place. With the coffin gone, the room feels empty.

“Need some help?” Annie asks from the doorway.

Her mother looks up. “Where did you get to?”

“Nowhere.” She stops. Lucinda stands there looking resigned, as if she knows Annie will only tell her what suits her.

“I ran into Gerry,” Annie admits.

Her mother puts down the candle she's holding. “Are you okay?”

Annie shrugs. The truth is, her heart is still broken.

“Is there anything we can do?” asks Lucinda.

Annie offers up Mercedes' letter. “I'd like you to read this.

Both of you.”

Annie walks to the window. She waits patiently. She needs her mother, now more than ever. She needs Lucinda to forgive her so that she can forgive herself.

Lucinda comes up beside her. She tucks her arm into Annie's and squeezes it. Annie squeezes back. They stand quietly together.

“Thank you, Annie,” Lucinda says finally.

“What for, Mom?” This was not the reaction she'd expected.

“For trusting me.”

Annie leans her head against her mother's. “It took me long enough.”

Callum joins them at the window. “Some things in life are better taken to the grave. Other things are best shared with people who love you.” He touches Annie's cheek. “I'm just so sorry you had to go through all that, and all alone.”

Annie lets out a long sigh. She feels an immense relief. For the first time in what seems like forever, she is free of the weight of anger and betrayal she has dragged around for so long.

The evening is still and clear with a cloudless sky. It is almost too calm, too perfect. Her eye is drawn to the tires in the front yard. Something is growing in the middle tire but Annie can't tell from this distance if it's a weed or a flower. All she can see is a tiny green shoot struggling to poke through the hard Newfoundland clay.

Epilogue

Sadie plants her bum on the stuffed chair that looks directly out the window. She sits patiently, seemingly watching every movement, yet, on this particular occasion, oblivious to all but the far end of the street. There is a throbbing in her temple.

Must be all that tea Gerard poured into me last night. Too much milk in it, gave me nightmares. Up to the bathroom half the night. Ah, no odds. Don't matter now.

Anticipation thrills through her. She smiles and tugs down her skirt to cover her knees and the run in her stocking.

A new dress. Yes, and new stockings too. I deserves it, no doubt about that. Gerard too. Wish he'd get here, find out what she left him. Better be some of that money Bessie was going on about. Least she could do after all he done for her. Not just him, me too, putting up with them stuck-up ways. Make you sick sometimes. Old bitch filling him with high-falutin' notions of what a smartie he was. Hah! Well, he got me to thank, not that old bag.

Sadie reaches into her apron pocket and brings out her flask. She undoes the cap and sniffs at the opening. Smiling, she takes a small sip. She licks her lips, then sips again, savouring the rich taste of the brandy – a special treat for a special day.