Authors: Carrie Crafton
It was the way he spoke that she liked. The tone of his voice was gentle but firm. His movements echoed it, slow but sure. They implied a hidden strength. Emily guessed that he didn’t say things lightly.
“How did you get to be so smart Joseph?” she asked. “The way you talk to people, you really listen. It feels like you understand.”
He smiled. His lips barely turned up but his eyes lit his whole face. “I learned it from Colleen. She was an amazing woman. So patient. So tolerant. And yet she seemed to bring out the best in people, as if they knew she’d see through anything less. Sometimes I wonder how the kids would’ve turned out if she’d lived. Sometimes I feel like I botched the job a bit.”
“But you’ve done an amazing job with your kids,” Emily protested.
Joseph nodded accepting the praise, but not necessarily believing it. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids. And I’m very proud of them. All of them. But there are certain qualities their mother could have given them that I just wasn’t able to.”
“Like what?” Emily was thankful to be pulled out of her own worries for a while. It was refreshing to hear Joseph’s, to find out that someone like him had big worries and regrets too. And she couldn’t help her eagerness to learn more about Collin’s family.
“Oh, well . . . . ” Joseph paused as if he might not continue. He looked around and took his time thinking about his answer before he met Emily’s eyes. “She could have curbed Kevin’s competitive nature,” he said eventually. “Sometimes I think he sees money more than people when customer’s walk in the door. It’s all a big game to him and he has to win. But at least he has Laura.” His eyes grew soft when he mentioned her name. “She’s good for him. She brings out a side of him not everyone gets to see.” Joseph took a long sip of his Guinness before he continued. “And I wish Joni could relax more. She was forced into so much when Colleen died. It was hard on her and I blame myself for that. I shouldn’t have let her take so much of it on. It’s made her too uptight. She had her wild time in London. She couldn’t wait to run off. But she never really learned how to relax. Colleen should have been there for her to talk to. How was Joni supposed to tell her old dad what she was feeling, what she needed.”
As Joseph’s hand reached for his Guinness again the pained look on his face eased. “Paul’s doing alright. Of course he’s the youngest. I don’t know how much all of it affects him. But he’s headstrong and seems to be making his own way.”
“And Collin?” Emily pushed.
“Collin.” Joseph sighed. “Collin forgot how to dream. He used to dream such beautiful dreams. He would tell my wife stories and she would tell them to me later. He used such vivid details. He lost that when she died. He lost his faith in things.” His eyes caught and held Emily’s. “But something about you is bringing it back. I can see it, the way he looks at you. He wants to believe in things again. He wants that in his life.”
“Not lately,” Emily said, pulling her eyes away.
“And what d’you mean by that?”
“Lately I feel like I’m just depressing him,” Emily confessed.
Joseph chuckled. “To be young again. You feel so alive but you take so much for granted.” His expression sobered. “Relationships are work. They’re the good and the bad. I know the way the kids and I talk about Colleen you’d think she was some kind of saint, but she had a temper too. We just got most of our fighting out of the way when we were still young. The kids didn’t see much of it. But we had our ups and downs too.”
“Really?” Emily’s eyes narrowed in disbelief.
“Really. You have to have some of that to have the spark. You and Collin are new. You just have to learn each other’s ways. Don’t forget how to talk to each other just because you aren’t using the phone anymore.”
Joseph walked Emily along the quay and across the bridge up to her new home. Their pace was slow and comfortable. Every now and again she bumped up against him and enjoyed the feel of his long arm there to steady her. It made her feel like a protected child.
“Joseph.” She said his name out, waiting for the courage to ask the question that had been on her mind for a while.
“Yes, Emily.”
“Did you ever talk to Colleen? I mean, after she died?”
“Yes.”
“Did you talk to her often?”
Joseph looked down at Emily curiously. “Not at first. At first it was too hard. But then I would visit her grave and tell her how much I missed her, tell her how the kids were doing. Then when something funny happened, when I was finally able to laugh again, I often felt like I was sharing the joke with her, like she was still with me.”
“Do you still talk to her?”
Joseph shrugged. “I s’pose. Sometimes I think things that I guess are directed at her, but I don’t carry her around with me the way I used to.”
“Oh.”
“Why?”
“Just wondering.” They arrived at the door then and Emily changed the subject. “Would you like to come in and see what we’ve done with the place? Have a cup of tea?”
-
Joseph smiled contentedly to himself as he shut the door behind him. Now he understood what Joni was talking about. Emily did have a different way about her. His daughter had called it weird, but Joseph wouldn’t have used that word. He preferred to think of Emily as interested. And when she directed her interested eyes on someone it was hard not to open up. She didn’t do it as if she intended any harm or as if she were being nosey. She just seemed to have a real fascination with people. And as she was just as open with her own life it was hard not to be with her. But what amused Joseph was the way it annoyed Joni and attracted Collin. Neither of them seemed to realize how much their mother had been like that.
-
Collin came home to find Emily curled up on the couch with a fire going. It was exactly where he expected to find her and his mood sank. He sighed but tried to brighten his expression before she saw it.
“How was your day?” he asked.
Emily stood to give Collin a hug and a lingering kiss. “Interesting.”
It wasn’t the answer he’d expected.
“Can I make you a cup of tea?” she offered. She disappeared into the kitchen without revealing any more details, knowing he would follow after.
Collin took off his tie and ran his fingers through his damp hair. “What did you do today?”
Emily opened the cupboard and pulled out two teacups. “I went for a walk.”
“In this weather?”
She turned on the kettle and dropped the tea bags in the cups before turning to look at him. “Yes. Not my brightest idea. So I found a pub.”
“Really?” Collin sat down at the table, disbelief written all over his face. “Did you have a coffee?”
Emily pulled out the milk and the sugar bowl. She was enjoying this. “No Collin. I did not go to the pub to have a coffee. I had a drink.”
“What did you have?”
Emily smiled at the thought of it. “A hot port. It was delicious too. We should get some for around the house. It’ll be a great drink for the winter.”
“Did you talk to anyone?” Collin wrapped his hands around the warm cup Emily handed him but he showed no real interest in it. His eyes were following her closely. He looked delighted.
Emily remembered she wasn’t supposed to mention seeing Joseph right before she spoke. “Just some old man. He was very nice.”
“What bar was it?”
“I think it was called Kennedy’s.”
“Down near the quay? Kind of an older bar a bit old fashioned? All the tables and chairs are wood and there’s a fireplace,” Collin perked up digging for details. “The bartender would’ve been probably in his fifties.”
“Yeah, that’d be the one,” Emily said absently.
“I used to go there with my parents when I was a kid. I know that sounds funny to you, but that’s how they did it here. No one could afford babysitters so all the kids were brought along. Funny that you’d go in there.”
Collin took a sip of his tea and Emily enjoyed watching his dumbfounded expression.
“You thought I sat on that couch all day didn’t you?” she eventually accused him.
Collin blushed. “Well . . . .”
“Uh-hu.” Emily kissed him again, reveling in the advantage of taking him off guard. She refused to admit to herself how much of a possibility doing just that had been.
Emily enjoyed the feeling of lying naked next to Collin, feeling his body against hers. She knew that eventually she’d take these simple pleasures for granted but as it was the memories of countless nights spent alone in Chicago missing him were too fresh. “Are you awake?” she asked.
“Hmmm?”
“It’s only ten Collin. You can’t be asleep already.”
“Did you want to watch t.v. er something?” he mumbled, moving his arm around her and pulling her close.
“No. I want you to tell me a story.” Emily’s fingers toyed with the few hairs on his chest while she waited to see if she’d made a mistake.
Collin turned just enough to look at her. “A story?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think so Em.”
“Well then maybe just describe something for me,” Emily pushed. “Tell me what an old Irish cottage would be like.”
“You were in one on the Aran Islands.”
“Yeah but that was somebody else’s. Tell me about the one you’d like. The one we’d have.”
Collin sighed. “You’re not going to let me fall asleep yet are you?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. Let’s see,” Collin thought about it for a minute. “It would be white of course. A nice whitewashed cottage that we’d keep in good condition. We’d have to have a good amount of land with it. There’s no point having it if you’re too cramped up with no land. The front yard would have a nice lawn with maybe some flowers and a path of cobblestones leading up to the door . . . . . and the back would be large with a vegetable garden and a shed where I could go to get away from you sometimes,” he said with a chuckle.
“Excuse me?” Emily feigned indignation.
“You could bring me in tea while I was working on my projects.” He patted her arm placatingly. “And maybe some scones and-.”
“What kind of projects?” Emily interrupted.
“I don’t know yet. But I’d have to have projects.”
“And inside?”
“Inside we’d have a nice big fireplace to have all our guests around. Lots of wooden furniture, kind of like Orla and Brendan have, a big kitchen and three or four bedrooms. We’d have to search for a while before we found the perfect furniture for all the rooms. Maybe some old chests and such.”
“Could we have flower boxes in the windows?”
“Sure, you can be in charge of those. And you’d learn to cook wonderful Irish meals and I’d keep you barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.”
Emily pinched Collin playfully. “Is that really how you see me?”
Collin laughed. “No Em, but this is all just make believe anyway.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Emily insisted.
“Well then how would I get to work?”
“You could get a different job.”
“Doing what?” Collin wasn’t amused anymore.
Emily shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Exactly, because there isn’t another job for me,” Collin’s voice became hard. His arm was still around Emily but it had gone stiff and cold. It was worse than if he’d pulled away. “There’s no point playing these let’s pretend games. We’re here Em. I have a good job. We have a nice house.”
“I know,” Emily said softly.
“So let’s just be happy with what we have. Okay?” His tone left no room for further discussion.
But that was the problem. Emily knew he wasn’t happy.
Chapter 6
Emily sat curled up on the couch with a blanket over her and a book in her hands feeling she’d earned a bit of down time. She’d spent the last week exploring the city one area at a time. Not that there was that much to Cork city, but she’d made a point of trying out many of the different cafés and pubs. She’d found bookstores and explored some smaller art galleries as well. It wasn’t like Chicago. All the attractions weren’t so obvious; they had to be found. But that made it more interesting. Then when Collin came home she’d tell him about her exploits each day. He seemed to enjoy hearing her talk about his home city so she made a point of mentally taking notes as she walked around.
It was only at the end of the week that she allowed herself to go back to Kennedy’s. It was the treat she’d saved for herself. And she was delighted to find Joseph there, sitting at the table by the fire, almost as if he were expecting her. The conversation remained light this time as Emily told him about her week. Joseph listened with his warm interested stare, but as four o’clock rolled around she noticed him glancing at his watch a bit more regularly. Eventually she excused herself wondering if she was keeping him or boring him. But he said it was great to see her and to stop by again next week for a chat.
As she stepped back outside she wondered what he was up to at four. Then she shook her head, annoyed with herself. She was being nosey again. She pushed her curiosity away and turned her thoughts to what she and Collin would do over the weekend.
That was decided as soon as Collin walked through the door. “We’re going on a pub-crawl,” he announced as he bounded up the stairs pulling off his tie. “You’ve seen Cork by day. Now it’s time to see it by night.”
And that was that.
They went from some of the nicest classiest bars to some of the dingier dives and did the in betweens as well. They only stayed for one drink at each place and Emily soon learned to order half pints instead of pints. Collin was on a mission and she was having a hard time keeping up. But it was fun. They laughed as they stumbled down the streets giving each place their own personal rating. At first it was a simple system; they decided whether they liked a place or not. As they continued on they judged pints (Collin was in charge of that), toilets (Emily covered that one), furnishings, and ambiance. They tried to come up with a rating scale but things were getting confused at that point. Collin was all but carrying Emily home by the end of the night.
And the following morning when Emily was ready to curl up and die he insisted that the only cure for them was the hair of the dog. She would have stood her ground refusing if he hadn’t decided to take her to The Franciscan Well. It was nearby and had a closed roof beer garden where Collin could smoke and Emily would still be warm enough. The fact of the matter was she felt like shit and was willing to try almost anything to get rid of her headache.
But when Sunday came around and the Heaven’s opened and the rain came down as if it would flood the place Emily got her way. They popped in movies and spent the day in front of the fire and the t.v.
The rain was still coming down when Collin headed off to work on Monday morning in his usual foul mood and Emily had no intention of stepping out into it. Besides which, she had work to do. It had been fair enough to put off the thank you notes for a little while. Everyone would understand that she was acclimating to her new home, but they’d only understand for so long.
So she got the fire going, still in her pajamas, pulled the blankets around her and began. She did the easiest ones first. She’d bought a few fancy cards that she could just sign and send off without too much fuss. She’d bought some like that for Collin’s side of the family as well. She intended to make him sit down and do them himself and figured he wouldn’t be writing too many long messages. She even addressed the envelopes for him to make it less intimidating. But there were a handful of people she needed to sit down and write full out letters for. As much as they argued about some things Emily did appreciate the values her mother had instilled in her and that included being a respectful and appreciative person.
It was a joy to write Helen’s, her best friend since college. She hadn’t made it over for the wedding because she was pregnant with her first child but she had sent a very thoughtful gift. In a card she had sent money for the wedding couple. But in a light package she’d sent a stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh bear to make Emily feel more at home. It was childish but Helen knew Emily well enough to know it would be appreciated. “Silly ol’ bear,” Emily had pronounced delightedly upon opening it while hugging it close. Collin had looked on with a bemused expression but chose not to comment.
Then there was Bridget who’d flown over for the wedding. Emily had worked with her in Chicago and they’d grown very close in the past year before Emily moved away. Emily couldn’t thank her enough for her help with the wedding preparations. Bridget had followed Emily calmly through the streets of Cork soothing her fragile nerves every time she’d gotten flustered and making sure everything was taken care of right down to the final details the day of the wedding. Emily praised her up and down for her patience and her sense of humor that had kept it fun.
By mid-afternoon all but two of the cards were done. Emily found herself wandering into the kitchen and dumping her cold tea. She would need something stronger for these. As she dug through the frige loose strands of dirty hair that had escaped her ponytail reminded her of her unwashed state. It would be the first time Collin came home to find her still in her pajamas but she couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it.
She hesitated for a moment as she remembered the weekend she’d had. Just the day before she’d sworn off alcohol for the week to come. But the task ahead of her was too intimidating. She carried the bottle back out to the couch and struggled with the cork for a couple minutes before curling up under her blankets. She had to admit she enjoyed the sound of the liquid filling the glass.
Holding the white wine up to the firelight Emily swirled it around trying to decide what kind of mood she was in. She’d come to love having her own place in Chicago where she was allowed to set the tone for her day. Her childhood world had been ruled by the moods of two women. Emotions had always been strong in the houses they’d inhabited. That’s what had made Emily long for peaceful relationships in the friendships she made later. But just thinking of those two women could still stir the old feelings.
“Your mother is a whack job,” Aunt Carolyn said as she inhaled deeply from a cigarette and stared out the window.
Emily wasn’t sure exactly what that meant but she knew it wasn’t something nice. She was torn between agreeing and standing up for her mom.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything. I know you know.” Aunt Carolyn looked her straight in the eye in a very unnerving way.
“How do I look?”
“Beautiful Emily,” Aunt Carolyn smiled back proudly.
“Thank you for taking me shopping. Whenever I go with Mom it turns into a huge fight.”
“I know. You’re mom asked me to take you. She wanted you to enjoy it.”
“You mean she didn’t want to deal with me.”
There was a flit of another memory, something elusive and hard to hold onto. Something happy. Jeremy had left his women to go out on his first real date and all three of them felt the lack of his presence. Emily popped a movie into the VCR and without saying anything Aunt Carolyn made a bowl of popcorn, and her mom pulled out pillows and blankets. They found themselves all sitting together on the couch smiling at some Julia Roberts movie.
Emily looked down at the blank space on the card wondering how to fill it. She hadn’t just lost Jeremy when he died, she’d lost her aunt as well. Four months to the day after the funeral, without a word of explanation, Aunt Carolyn packed up two large suitcases, put them into the trunk of her car, and disappeared. A week later postcards started arriving in the mail, postcards from all over the U.S. Then they started arriving from other countries.
“But how can she afford it?” Emily had asked her mom. Their little family unit had never been a rich one.
“It’s Jeremy’s college fund. She put away all the money from his dad’s life insurance policy and kept adding to it. She had enough to pay for him straight through graduate school.”
Aunt Carolyn reappeared three years later with Keith at her side. Emily’s mom had just started dating Hank and for once when the sister’s saw each other they exchanged real smiles. But when Aunt Carolyn looked at Emily the smile faded and her face grew troubled. Emily understood without it being explained. She reminded her aunt too much of Jeremy.
Keith had two children of his own and had lost his wife to breast cancer five years previously. His children, tired of seeing him stuck in a depressing routine, had saved up to send him on a trip to Rome and that’s where he’d met Aunt Carolyn. It didn’t take her long to throw herself completely into his family. At first she made an attempt to see Emily and her mom for some of the holidays. Then she would visit about once a year and then even less. She still showed up for Emily’s high school graduation and her college graduation but every time she saw Emily the look remained.
Aunt Carolyn had heard all about Collin from Emily’s mother and was delighted for her but had opted not to come to Emily’s wedding. For a present she sent a card as a voucher for a weekend in Paris saying whenever Emily and Collin were ready to go she would arrange all the details. She explained that it was the place that had healed her the most. She apologized for her absence at the wedding and asked Emily to forgive her. She wrote that she wanted it to be the happiest day of Emily’s life and knew that her presence would only remind both of them of who was missing.
And that’s how it was. They still loved each other but they were just too aware around each other of the gap that couldn’t be filled.
Emily started the letter with the words she knew her aunt needed to see the most. “You are forgiven completely and didn’t need to ask.”
The first glass of wine was gone by the time Emily finished writing. There was only one more to go.
Emily stood to build up the fire and refilled her glass of wine. She looked over her letter to her aunt and felt happy with it. She pulled out the nicest of the cards, the one meant for her mom and Hank and wondered if she could do this too. Stalling for time she addressed the envelope first.
“You are forgiven completely.” She repeated the words she’d written to her aunt and tried to visualize her mom. She could understand, accept, and forgive her aunt. But the words just didn’t come out right when she pictured her mom. She could not forgive her, not completely. She could thank her. She could thank her for helping her with the details such as invitations and flower arrangements and for buying the dress. All of these were things that had helped to make it the best day of her life. But she couldn’t forgive her mom for the past. And she wasn’t sure if she was angrier with her mom or herself for that.
Emily knew her mom had changed. In fact it had happened years ago. Around the time Hank came into her life. Something in her seemed to relax and let go. Even the features of her face seemed to change. The tightness that had always been there eased. And some part of Emily was thankful for that.
Hank had no children of his own and had always tried to treat Emily like family. It was something she would have embraced willingly had she been younger, and it was a gesture she still did appreciate, but at fifteen it just felt too late to really accept.
Just before Emily went off to college she knew her mom was really trying, doing her best to get Emily back. But Emily resented the fact that she’d lost Jeremy and her mom had found Hank. She refused to let things be fixed so easily. She still felt her mom had years to account for and she wasn’t going to let her off the hook so easily.
“So when does it end?” The newly emerging guilt Emily had been feeling intensified and she took another sip of wine. “How long will you make her suffer for mistakes from the past?”
Emily wrote the card out quickly telling herself that since it was for Hank as well it was acceptable not to make it too personal. She was thankful in it and even loving, but she knew she was also holding back and she couldn’t force herself to do more. She stuck it in the envelope, licked it, and sealed it.
And then she thought of all the other millions of things she would have liked to say.
Emily was almost done with her third glass of wine when Collin came home. The letters were piled up neatly next to her, as if she needed proof that she’d still accomplished something with her day.
“Well, well, well. And I thought you were sick of drink.”
She watched the movement she’d come to equate with Collin’s entrance, the tearing off of his tie, with a fuzzy head. She wanted to say that she in fact was sick of drink, but with the evidence stacked against her she couldn’t. A sick feeling grew in her stomach and for a moment she felt sick of everything: of ghosts from her past, of the newness of the present, of her mom, of drink, and even Collin. But when the last feeling shot through her she shivered and instinctively reached out for him. He was the only thing solid she had to hold onto. She needed him.