Children in the Morning (5 page)

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Street Liquor Store to get a bottle of wine. He didn’t look like a priest when he arrived; he was wearing a regular shirt with a sweater over it. The baby was fussing and crying but when Father Burke arrived, a big grin came on Dominic’s face, and he kicked his little fat legs in the air and moved his arms up and down to get Father to pick him up. Dominic was always doing that whenever Father Burke came over. It was really cute, especially because he looks like Father, with black hair and really dark eyes. We put him in his high chair to eat, but he fell asleep.

“Sit your blessed arse down, Father,” Mum said. “How may I serve you?”

“Sure I have an awful thirst on me, Mrs. MacNeil, and I’m a bit peckish as well.”

So we all sat down. Dinner was really fun. They let me have a tiny bit of wine in a little wee glass. It was a dark red and tasted kind of sharp at first; then, I really liked it.

“This is damn good wine, Father,” Mum said. “I hope it didn’t cost you a month’s pay.”

“Well, they took up a special collection for me at the church, Mrs.

MacNeil, knowing as they do that I live in the spirit of poverty. Just following in the footsteps of our Lord and His disciples.”

“Oh, you’re a saint, Father.”

“Ah, now, all this talk from yourself and so many others about me being a saint, it embarrasses me. If Holy Mother Church deems it appropriate to canonize me after my passing, so be it. In the mean-while, I’m here to serve as best I can.”

“And serve you do, so generously. Taking your last coin and spending it on a little treat for us.”

“And a drop for meself, too, now. I’m not as selfless as I’m portrayed in the local . . .” He said a word like “geography” but with something like “hag” instead of “geo.” So I asked what that was.

He said: “Hagiography. A book about the life of a saint.”

“Okay.”

He looked at me and my wineglass then. “Whoa! Take it easy, little one. Don’t be getting too fond of the drink there, Normie!”

“I won’t!” If you get too fond of drinking, you become an alcoholic.

Which is bad. But I don’t have that problem. I can drink or not drink; 17

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either way is fine with me. I didn’t ask for seconds when I was done.

“Future sainthood aside, Father, do they ever take you to task over at the rectory for all the high living you do? The worldly pleasures you enjoy? Wine, whiskey, cigars, rich food . . .”

“They do, darlin’. I’m on my knees every night, in contrition. But the bishop usually lets me off the hook when he knows I’ve eaten here. ‘No sumptuous dining tonight, eh, Brennan? Gnawed on a few tough scraps at the MacNeil house again? Offer it up to God, my son.’ But you’ve out-done yourself tonight. By far the best meal I’ve ever enjoyed here.”

“Father?”

“Mmm?”

“Pòg mo thòn.”

I didn’t get what they were talking about, but I wrote it all down in my personal diary anyway, and looked up the spelling of some words. I think it was just a joke about Mum’s cooking. She’s not a great cook, even though she’s a great mother. But I do know what she said to him at the end: it’s Scottish Gaelic for — and it’s not me saying this, it’s Mum —
kiss my arse!

So it was funny to listen to them talking, even if some of it didn’t make sense to me. A couple of times I saw Father Burke staring at the baby, then he looked away, as if it’s rude to stare at someone’s baby.

But it isn’t. Everyone likes people to look at their baby because everybody thinks their own baby is cute. Even if it isn’t. But ours is.

Then there was a loud knock on the door.

“Who could that be?” Mum said. It always drives Dad crazy when the phone or the doorbell rings and Mummy asks who it might be.

The whole family is like that, Mum’s side anyway. Daddy just says:

“Answer it. Mystery solved.”

Anyway she got up and went to the door.

“Oh!” I heard her say. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see my son!”

“I don’t believe there is a piece of paper filed anywhere in this province that names you as the father of my child!”

“Don’t make jokes. I want to see him!”

Anybody would know who that was, because of his Italian accent.

He had long curly brown hair and dark eyes, and looked like somebody in a movie. It was Mum’s old boyfriend, Giacomo. We had not 18

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seen him for ages. Me and Tommy thought they broke up. Now he was at the door. And then he was in the dining room. Gawking at Dominic in his high chair.

“I do not care what your papers say or do not say. Anybody would know, looking at the boy, whose son he is,” Giacomo said. Then he caught sight of Father Burke, and glared at him, then looked back at the baby. Father Burke stood up, because it’s polite to do that if somebody comes in the room, but he was giving Giacomo a dirty look.

Then Giacomo finally saw me. “Oh!
Mi dispiace
, Normie,
buonasera!
”

“Buonasera,
Giacomo,” I answered, because he had taught us a few words of Italian.

“Giacomo Fornino, this is Brennan Burke. Brennan, Giacomo.”

The two of them shook hands, but they did not look happy to be meeting one another.

“Sit down and have something to eat, Giacomo. We’ll talk later.”

He didn’t want to eat. He wanted to argue. But he sat down.

Father Burke pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered them to Giacomo. He took one, and Mum went over and opened up the buffet table, and brought out two old ashtrays. She usually growls if anyone tries to smoke in the house, but that night she didn’t bother.

Father Burke leaned way over and lit Giacomo’s cigarette, glaring through the flame at him the whole time.

Giacomo sucked back on the cigarette and spoke up. “A pleasure to meet you,” he said to Father Burke, but he didn’t mean it.

“Where are you from, Giacomo?” Father Burke sounded friendly.

“I am from Rome.” He talked a bit about Rome, and Father Burke asked him a couple of questions in Italian, which he really speaks, unlike me and Tommy who only know a few words. Giacomo answered sometimes in English and sometimes in Italian.

When he wound down, Father Burke said: “But seriously, now, where are you from?”

“Roma.”

“No, you can’t be from Rome.” Father Burke took a deep drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke away from the table. “I know you’re just having us on. So?
Di dov’è?
”

Mummy looked at Father, wondering what was going on.

19

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Giacomo finally said: “I am from a small village originally, of course, but I came to Rome to study and I stayed there until I came to Canada to work for three years.”

He was mad and got up and left the room. Went to the bathroom.

Mum gave Father Burke kind of a dirty look. “All right. Give.

How the hell did you know he wasn’t from Rome?”

“He just said he paid
cinquecentomila lire
for something.

Chinkweh-chento, not shinkweh-shento the way the Romans say it.

So, a bit of a dissembler you have there, darlin’.”

“Hearing the gospel truth was not my main motivation for seeing Giacomo. If I want gospel, I’ll get up early on a Sunday morning and go hear you.”

“Sounds as if you’re more in need of a lawyer right now than a priest.”

“I’ll send him packing. He’s got no proof —”

“But a child’s father certainly can claim a right —”

Mum used a big word, and I came up with a sneaky question the next day to find out what it was: “hypothetically.” I did that a lot while this was going on. It wasn’t really a lie when I told her I was trying to “build up my vocabulary,” because that’s something they want us to do at school.

Anyway, what Mum said this time was: “If, hypothetically, a child has a father who lives here in the city of Halifax, or even in the province of Nova Scotia, a mother might be more inclined to see those hypothetical rights exercised. But if a child has someone claiming to be the father, and that individual wants to take the child four thousand miles across the ocean, then that individual is never going to succeed in establishing his claim.”

Giacomo came back then and said he wanted to get to know his son. Our baby! Then he started going on about his parents in Italy.

That’s when Mum interrupted him and said: “Normie, you have lessons to do for tomorrow. Time to go up to your room.”

But going to your room in our house is not the end of it, because there’s a secret listening post upstairs in the hallway. It’s an old thing called a register in the floor, where the heat comes up. It’s made of squiggles of black iron. And when the heat’s not on, you can hear what people are saying in the kitchen. So I clomped up the stairs and 20

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into my bedroom, then tiptoed out to the listening post and sat down.

“My family expect to see their grandson. They expect him to be part of their lives. Which is only right.”

Mum said: “You are making an assumption that you are not entitled to make, that you are the father of the child. That’s all I am going to say on the matter for now.”

Giacomo scraped his chair back. On his way out of the kitchen, he said: “You will be hearing from me, or from my lawyer!”

“Who’s your lawyer?”

“You don’t know him. He is from home.”

“Well, make sure he doesn’t reverse the charges when he calls!”

“There will be no need for long-distance telephone charges. He will be here.”

“You’re bringing a lawyer all the way over here from Italy?!”

“Yes. So you know I am serious. Goodbye. For now.”

I heard the front door close. Then Mummy burst out into tears!

She kept saying: “This can’t be happening. Only over my dead body will that child leave the country!”

I ran downstairs and Father Burke was hugging Mum while she cried. He looked over the top of her head at me and said: “Don’t you worry, Normie. Everything will be fine.”

“Don’t let him take Dominic away!” I didn’t mean to yell but I did anyway.

He said: “That’s not going to happen, little one. Don’t even think about it. Maura,
macushla
, settle yourself down and call the best lawyer you know.”

“Ha! I don’t think Monty would want to take this on, given that my pregnancy put the kibosh on us getting back together!”

“Well, you have to admit, it did come as a surprise to him!”

“It came as a surprise to me too! I just thought I’d gained a bit of weight! I had no idea . . .”

“All right, let’s not get into that again. The point is, you won’t be hiring Monty to take the case. Too close to home for him.”

“The best family lawyer in town is one of Beau Delaney’s partners.

Val Tanner. Oh God, I hope Giacomo doesn’t twig to the fact that he’s going to need someone local here, a member of the Nova Scotia 21

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bar, and get to her first! He’s probably heard me talk about her. She’s relentless. If he gets her, I won’t have a hope!”

“Get to her first. Give her a call. Go!” And he kind of pushed her to the phone.

I think he had forgotten that I was there because he looked surprised when his eyes fell on me. “Normie, wouldn’t it be better if you went upstairs and did your school work? Your mum will work all this out, never you fear.” So up I went again. In a way, I wanted to try to listen some more, but in another way I didn’t; I just wanted to remember Father Burke saying Mummy would work it out. So I did my school work.

†

I didn’t find out what they did about Dominic because I went to Daddy’s house to spend a few days with him. I do that a lot, and so does Tommy, unless he’s with his band, which is called Dads In Suits, or with his girlfriend, Lexie. Daddy’s house is right on the water. It’s a part of the water that comes in from the ocean and they call it the Northwest Arm. We have a boathouse, but no boat. Yet. But going to Daddy’s place always gives me the chance to nag for one. All I wanted was a little rowboat, and I would paint it bright yellow.

Daddy used to have a sailboat but then he spent so much time with us and with his blues band, Functus, that he never had time to go sailing, so he sold it. Which was kind of dumb, really. You never know when you’re going to want a boat again, so why not keep it?

But I would continue to work on him.

I didn’t get a chance to nag about the boat on my first night with Daddy because I fell asleep before I could bring it up. Then I had other things on my mind. I had horrible dreams and I woke up in the middle of the night with Daddy standing over me. It took a few minutes to figure out that I was staying at his house and to understand what he was saying: “Normie, sweetheart, wake up. You’re having a nightmare. Let yourself wake up, and you’ll be fine.”

My heart was beating really fast, my head hurt, and I was a sweat ball. My jammies were stuck to me. But Daddy hugged me anyway.

Then he sat with me in the bed, and put my head against his chest; 22

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he kept smoothing my hair back.

“Tell me.”

“I’m scared.”

“It was just a dream, dolly. You’re safe here in the house with me.

Tell me about the dream; that will make it go away.”

“There was a baby. And they were being really mean!”

“Who was?”

“Those guys that were there.”

“What were they doing?”

“I don’t know. I just know the baby was crying and screaming, and was scared or hungry, and it was those guys’ fault!”