First Sight (41 page)

“You know, I haven’t done anything that impressive with my life. I run a successful business, and that’s about it. I’m not married. I don’t have kids. I have no family. All I’ve done worthy of respect is run Timmie O.”

“The example you set,” Sister Anne said quietly, “is by the kind of person you are. And that in spite of adversities in your life, you’ve never given up. That gives people hope. Sometimes we need hope more than love. In truth, we need both. You give these children something to hope for, by showing them they can do it, and to get them there, you give them love. There’s no better gift than that.”

As Timmie looked at the nun, what she saw was that that was exactly what Sister Anne had given her, and what she needed most. Sister Anne had given Timmie love and hope that Jean-Charles would come back. It was all she needed now, as she reached out and embraced the nun with a warm hug.

“Thank you,” she said softly, as she looked at her again.

“It’s all right, Timmie.” The old nun patted her hand. “Trust God on this one. Jean-Charles will be back.” Timmie nodded, and hoped that she was right.

Chapter 19

Timmie was saying goodbye to the children at the campsite the next day as a car drove up, and two priests got out. A young one had been driving, and an elderly priest in Roman collar with jeans followed him to where Timmie was standing with the children and the nuns. Sister Anne introduced them, as Timmie looked at the older priest strangely. There was something so familiar about him, but she wasn’t sure what it was. He had a broad Irish face, a shock of white hair, and piercing blue eyes that danced when he smiled. He shook Timmie’s hand as Sister Anne introduced them, and then he stared at her and frowned.

“Timmie O’Neill? … I don’t suppose you were ever in a place called St. Clare’s?” Timmie stared at him with wide eyes, and remembered instantly who he was. He had been the priest who heard confessions in the orphanage where she grew up. He always brought candy to the kids, and pretty hair clips for the little girls. She remembered he had once given her a big blue bow for her hair. She had never forgotten the kind gesture, and wore it until it was ragged. It was the only one she had ever had.

“Father Patrick?”

“I’m afraid so,” he said with a broad grin. “One and the same. You had the boniest knees I’ve ever seen, and more freckles than I’ve ever counted on any one kid in my life. What have you been up to for all these years?” She laughed at the question, and so did Sister Anne. He was probably the only man or woman in the country, or half the world, who wasn’t familiar with her name.

“I run a clothing company in L.A.,” she said humbly, and he stared at her again.

“Oh my God, you’re not
that
Timmie O, are you? I never made the connection in all these years. I always buy your jeans and dress shirts. You make very nice things,” he complimented her in his heavy Irish accent. He’d been in the States for fifty years and still spoke with a thick brogue.

“Well, don’t buy them anymore,” Timmie scolded him. “I’ll send you some things when you go back. I was just leaving. I’m so glad we met.” He was one of the few decent memories she had of her childhood, and it touched her to see him. And within minutes, he, the young priest with him, the nuns, and all the children were trying to convince her to stay. She finally agreed to stay till after dinner. She needed to get back to San Francisco that night, and fly to L.A. She had work to do the next day, and meetings she couldn’t get out of. But she loved the idea of spending the day with Father Pat, for old times’ sake.

They sat and reminisced with the children over lunch, and she was touched to discover that he knew all about St. Cecilia’s and had been there often. He and Sister Anne were old friends.

“You’re doing some very fine work,” he complimented Timmie. “It warms my heart when people who’ve suffered turn it into a blessing for others. These children need you, Timmie. Too many of them fall through the cracks in the system, just like you did, and never get adopted or placed in foster care. I remember how hard it was for you at St. Clare’s. I could never understand why people didn’t keep you. I think you were probably just too old by the time your parents left you. As I recall, they didn’t sign the relinquishment papers for quite a while.” She could tell he was getting old by the details he had forgotten. He had forgotten that her parents had died, but he remembered all the rest, and she was touched.

“Actually, my parents died, which is how I wound up at St. Clare’s. I guess I wasn’t all that charming. Maybe they didn’t like knobby knees and freckles and red hair. Whatever it was, I always wound up back where I started. Right back at St. Clare’s. I remember confessing to you once that I hated my foster parents for sending me back, and you told me not to worry about it, and gave me a Snickers bar, and didn’t even tell me to say a Hail Mary for admitting how much I hated them.”

“I didn’t blame you one bit.” He smiled, but his eyes looked troubled. The conversation moved on and centered on St. Cecilia’s, and it was later that afternoon when he approached her, after she went for one last swim with the kids.

“Timmie,” he said cautiously. He had discussed it with Sister Anne before saying anything to her, but they both thought she had a right to know, even if it was unorthodox for him to say something to her. But they both felt she was certainly old enough to hear it, and it might make some kind of difference to her, even now. “I’m not really supposed to say this to you, although the laws have changed in these matters. If you had decided to pursue it, they would be obligated to tell you. No one can hunt you down with information, but I thought you might like to know. Your parents didn’t die, Timmie. They gave you up and went back to Ireland. I never met them, but I knew the story. They were both young and had run away together. They got married and they had you, and then things started to go wrong. I think they were both in their early twenties at the time. They had no money, no jobs, they couldn’t handle a baby. They put you up for adoption, and went back to Ireland to their parents. I don’t know if they stayed together. And I remember that they took a while to sign the papers, so they must have hesitated. I think they bit off more than they could chew, so they gave you up and went back. They had a car accident, I believe, you were with them, and you weren’t hurt. They had both been drinking and got in a head-on collision, and miraculously, no one was killed. For some reason, they made the decision then and there. The ambulance took them to the hospital, and they had you taken to St. Clare’s. I think your mother broke her arm, and your father banged his head a bit. They came to St. Clare’s the next day, but they didn’t see you. Your mother said they weren’t responsible enough to have a child and maybe she was right. You could have been killed while they were joy-riding the night before. Thank God you weren’t.” What he said brought back her memory of riding the ambulance to St. Clare’s. She had no recollection of being in the car with them, or how they had been taken away, or what condition they’d been in. She never saw them again and had always believed the story that they died that night. “Your mother wanted us to tell you that they died. She thought it would be easier for you to understand.”

He looked troubled as he said it, and even now, all these years later, hearing the story, Timmie was profoundly shocked. It was the ultimate rejection, worse than their dying. They had just dumped her in an orphanage, given her up for adoption, and gone home. And even if the story was more complicated than that, that was what it had translated to for her. They had solved their problems by letting others care for her. And they had never come back. It had been her greatest terror all her life, and now she knew why. Her worst nightmares had been exactly what had happened to her, and even what she was so afraid of with Jean-Charles now. She had been abandoned by the parents she loved and who said they loved her. “Are you all right?” Father Patrick asked her when he saw the look on her face.

“I think so. Do you know where they are now?” He shook his head.

“Probably in Ireland. I’m sure there’s no current information on them. They had no right to contact you, once they gave you up. But the diocese will have to give you the files, if you ask. You might find some clue to help you find them now, if that’s what you want.” He knew that others had, and claimed it had made a difference to them. He couldn’t imagine that it made a difference to Timmie. She was so successful, and seemed relaxed and happy, but you never knew what ghosts tortured people, and he had felt compelled to tell her the truth when she mentioned her parents’ death. He had somehow assumed that she knew the truth by now, but clearly she didn’t, which was why he told her. He thought she had a right to know the truth, and not a lie. She had believed the lie of their dying all her life.

“Is O’Neill my real name?” she asked, still looking startled.

“I assume it is,” he said kindly. And for the rest of the afternoon, she wandered around, feeling distracted, although no one could see how upset she was.

As promised, she left just after dinner, with all the nuns and children waving. The two priests had left just before she did, and she’d gotten Father Patrick’s address, so she could send him something from Timmie O. She thanked him for the information he had shared with her. It was all she could think of on the drive back to San Francisco, and the flight back to L.A. She lay awake all night.

Jean-Charles was immensely relieved when he finally reached her early the next morning. He hadn’t spoken to her in four days. She told him about the camping trip with the children, and then in a troubled voice she told him what Father Patrick had told her about her parents. Even all these years later, it was shocking for her. All her life, she had believed that she wound up in the orphanage because her parents died. It changed everything to know that they had left her there when they were alive. Knowing that made the abandonment so much worse.

“They just left me and went home, and never came back again.” It was easy for him to figure out that their desertion had been the root of all her problems and terrors for an entire lifetime ever since. It even contributed now to her terrors about him, which he also understood. He could hear in her voice how upset she was.

“They must have been very frightened and very young,” he said gently. “It’s not so easy to be responsible for a child with no one to help you. They probably had no money, and didn’t know what else to do.”

“They could have taken me home with them. I wasn’t a newborn they could dump on the church steps or in a trash can. I was five years old,” she said with a sense of outrage that he could hear in her voice. But there was nothing she could do about it now. It had been forty-three years before, and they were long gone. The only thing she had left to remind her of them were the scars she had had on her soul ever since. They had no way of knowing what had happened to her once they signed the adoption papers, and apparently didn’t care. It had been the ultimate abandonment, followed by so many others since.

“Timmie, you have to put it behind you now. There’s nothing else you can do.” He tried to distract her then by reminding her of their meeting at the Eiffel Tower. He said that everything was going well. His wife was feeling a little better, his children were calmer, and he was sure that in three weeks he’d be able to go. He said he could hardly wait. Timmie barely dared to hope. In three weeks, their life would begin. He said he was getting organized to leave, and planned to tell them in the next two weeks. “I’ll be there,” he said. It sounded silly and romantic. They would finally be together after five months of waiting for him.

“I have something to tell you when I see you,” she said, smiling, and he was curious about what it was. They had so much to say and do and share. They had a whole life waiting for them, as soon as he got out. And Timmie was waiting for him with more love than she could tell him, and open arms. Life was going to begin for them in earnest on September 1. She had finally dared to hope again, and think that maybe Sister Anne was right.

She left for the office shortly after his phone call, and stewed about it all day. Not about what Jean-Charles had said to her, which was so encouraging and hopeful, but about what Father Patrick had shared with her the day before, and Jean-Charles’s comments about it. She didn’t agree with him. There was nothing she could do to change it now, but at least she had a right to discover everything there was to know about them. Not that seeing her file from the orphanage would explain to her why they’d left her. But it might tell her something.

She called St. Clare’s herself at four-thirty, and asked them to send her all her records. She faxed them a release so they could do so, and she felt like the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof while she waited three days for them to arrive, and was disappointed when they did. There was not much there. Her parents’ real names. Joseph and Mary O’Neill. Her mother had been twenty-two, her father twenty-three. Both were Irish, and said they were indigent, unemployed, and returning to Ireland, to live with their families. There was a copy of their marriage license, so she had been legitimate, not that it really mattered. It was very simple really, they just didn’t want her, couldn’t keep her, couldn’t afford her. They had come to America in their teens, gotten married, had a baby, and when things didn’t work out for them, they had dumped her and gone home. It had been their request to tell her that they had died, so she didn’t feel too badly. There was a faded photograph of both of them. They looked about fourteen. She had her mother’s features and her father’s red hair. As Timmie sat and stared at the photograph of the people who had abandoned her forty-three years before, her hand shook, and tears poured down her cheeks. She wanted to hate them, but couldn’t. All she wanted now was an explanation from them about why they did it, and if they had missed her after they left her. She wanted to know if they had loved her at all, and if they’d cared about giving her up for adoption. Had they been relieved or heartbroken? She wasn’t sure why, but it mattered a great deal to her. Maybe all she really wanted to know, she realized, was if they’d ever loved her.