The Crow of Connemara (9 page)

Colin saw his mother nod faintly. Her hand pressed her husband's once.

“We have Mr. Doyle on a morphine drip,” the doctor continued, “as well as lorazepam for sedation. I want you know that he is feeling absolutely no pain or discomfort. For the viability of his organs, though, we need to keep him on the ventilator until we've harvested all the viable organs.”

“You're sure there's no possibility you're wrong?” Colin asked. “I mean, you hear of someone suddenly coming out of a coma after months or years . . .”

Dr. Pearse was shaking her head before he'd finished. “Your father's not in a coma.” She wasn't harsh, only factual. Colin wondered how many times she'd said something similar to other families. “I know that you're looking at him and he seems to be alive. You see his chest rising and falling and can see his heartbeat on the monitor. But on an EEG, looking for brain activity—and we did that last night and this morning as well—you'd see no electrical activity at all. That isn't the case for coma patients, and a coma patient would have had responses to the other tests we've done.” She took a long breath, and her voice changed, a warmth and sympathy entering her tone and attitude. “I'm truly sorry and I know how hard this is for all of you. But I can tell you that there isn't any clinical evidence of recovery from a patient who has met all the criteria for brain death. None. I promise you that if I had
any
uncertainty, any at all, I would tell you to wait and let nature take its course. But with your father's situation . . . If I were to take him off the ventilator, he would stop breathing, and he'd die within a very few minutes. This way, with the transplant team, some good will come from his death. I hope that can be of comfort to you.”

Colin watched his father's chest, which lifted once, then slowly fell. The ventilator hissed in time to the breath. The tableau would be fixed in Colin's mind: all of them leaning forward over the bed; his mother whispering to his father as Tommy put his arm around her. “Tom, you just rest now. I'll miss you, darling. I love you. I love you so much . . .” Her voice broke and she began to cry, an aching, terrible sound that, contagious, rippled around the room. Colin's eyes filled with tears, blurring the scene, and his breath shuddered. He felt someone's hand on his back and didn't know who it was and didn't care. The comfort was all he craved.

“I'll wait outside while you say your good-byes,” Dr. Pearse said. “Call me when you're ready for us to take him.”

She left the room, closing the door behind her. Father Frank rose from his chair and went to the head of the bed to intone the Last Rites. Colin's mother gave a sharp, birdlike cry of pain as she listened. She bent over the body, kissing her husband softly as Tommy held her. Colin heard Jen crying hard, and he started to go to her, but she had already turned into Aaron's embrace. For a moment, Colin felt adrift, alone in the midst of a terrible pit of black grief, but then Aunt Patty found him; he let her hug him, comforting him as she might have when he was a child. He let himself cry then, fully, pulling away from her several gulping breaths later, wiping at his eyes. He looked at his father lying warm and breathing and empty on the bed; at his mother sitting now in a chair someone had brought her next to the bed, still clutching his father's hand.

“Go on,” she said to the room. “All of you should tell him good-bye.”

One by one, they made their way to the head of the bed to whisper their last words to him. Colin hung back, watching as Harris came forward to pat his father's hand. “You'd have won, Tom,” he said. “Now it'll be Tommy. I'll make sure of that.”

Colin went up last. He touched his father's hand, still impossibly warm. His eyes filled with tears again, blurring his vision. The ventilator chuffed; his father's chest rose. “Sorry, Dad,” he said, knowing the others were listening to him. “I'm so sorry . . .” His voice choked and he stepped back. “Sorry,” he repeated. Aunt Patty put her arm around his waist and he leaned into her as he glanced at his mother, who was crying also. She nodded to him.

For an instant, as if he'd been somehow transported outside of himself, Colin caught a glimpse of himself on some shore, looking out over the cold, gray waves of the Atlantic: gazing eastward and south, toward what he knew was a distant America.
The sea contains the world's tears
, he thought he heard someone say: again, the woman he'd heard before.
The Old Ones say the sea holds all the sorrow there ever was, and all that is to come.
Someone's arms curled around him from behind; he felt her body press against his back.
Come to me. Let me share your grief. Sing your song for us.

Then she was gone, in a whiff of salt air, and he was back in the hospital room.

“It's time,” he heard his mother say. “Tommy, tell the doctor she can come in now.”

9

M
AEVE LEANED BACK and heaved a long sigh. She could feel Keara watching her from across the table, through the fume of the brazier. The faint images of the bard and his surroundings had vanished from the smoke, though the feel of him lingered along her body. She had enjoyed that sensation; it reminded her of another time.

“M'Lady?” Keara asked.

“'Tis done,” Maeve answered, and smiled at the young woman. “Or at least things are put in motion. I couldn't have done this without yeh, Keara. I want yeh to know that.”

Keara favored her with a small, almost shy smile. “T'anks, m'Lady. 'Tis m'pleasure.” Then her expression settled. “He
will
be arriving, then?”

For a moment, Maeve considered telling her the truth: that she couldn't know that; that all she could do was push and nudge at the bard from a distance; that if he ignored her voice and the signals she sent him, if despite all that he was going to hear soon he decided to ignore her, there was nothing she could do to compel him to come.

That she was bound to this land more than any one of them and couldn't go to him even if she wished to do that.

“Aye,” she told Keara, because there was no other answer that any on the island cared to hear, because it was the only message she could send to them or they'd begin to drift away or give up, and any chance for them—and for her—would be lost. “He will come. Soon.”

“Good,” Keara agreed. “Aiden and the rest will be glad to know that.” She began gathering up the herbs and powders into the leather bag she carried, then stopped and swept back her long hair over a shoulder. “Will yeh need me any more today?”

“No,” Maeve told her. “Tomorrow, though, I need yer help again with the spell, just so we can put an end to any questions. Come in the morning, and if yeh have some of your scones ready, that would be grand as well. I'll have tea waiting.”

Keara grinned. “I will at that, m'Lady. I'll see you then. Sleep well, tonight, and don't forget the stew I brought for yeh. Aiden said it was tasty enough, and yeh need to keep up yer strength.” With that, she swept the last of the herbs into her shoulder bag, gave Maeve a brief curtsy, then went out into the night. Maeve could smell the briny wind from the open door and glimpse a starry, clear sky against which Keara was briefly silhouetted, then the odor and the night sky vanished with the closing of the door.

Maeve sat at the table for a long time before finally throwing a few more turves on the hearth. She glanced at the covered bowl of stew on the stones of the fireplace as she sat in the wooden chair facing the flames. She leaned over to lift the cloth napkin and stared at the chunks of lamb, potatoes, and carrots swimming in a thick broth, the savory steam wafting up enough to make her salivate. But she covered the bowl again, watching the flames beginning to lick at the new bricks of peat.

The fire reminded her of another time, another place, another body.

“I love you,” he said to her, and the words fell through her like mirror shards, reflecting back to her how much she'd changed. She said the same words back to him—“And I love you”—knowing that in the past the words would have been simply empty vessels, and that she could have put that person to the sword the next day without any regrets at all.

But slow time as well as the slow change of the culture around them had changed her, at least somewhat, though some of the Old Ones seemed entirely untouched. She was no longer the being that she had been, and there was something in her that echoed the leamh, the mortals, around her. There were times when she nearly envied them, because sometimes now her life seemed far too long and far too lonely.

She looked at this leamh, who had just professed his love for her, and she felt that mortal part of her warm to those words. Could she actually feel love for one of them? Could she one day say those words in return and fully mean them, if not for this one, then another in some future time?

“I did love you as much as I could,” she whispered now: to the fire, to the night, to the memory. “I did. And maybe . . .”

She remembered the face she'd seen in the smoke, and the momentary feel of his body against hers.

“Maybe . . .” she whispered again, then shook her head. “No, I can't,” she scolded herself. Her voice sounded loud against the silence in the cottage. “You know what your duty is, and to do it, you can't let yourself feel that. You can't.”

She clenched her fingers in her lap. She inhaled the scent of the peat, and remembered a cave near Rathcroghan, and the man she knew there.

10

T
HE NEXT FEW DAYS were a whirlwind for Colin: a visitation at the funeral home where he shook hands and exchanged empty condolences with what seemed to be a few thousand relatives, friends of the family, colleagues, and political cronies: a passing collage of faces and names that he forgot as soon as he heard them. Colin wore one of Tommy's suits, borrowed for the occasion, the tie a social noose around his neck. Of that long day, he remembered mostly the overpowering floral scent of the room, and his father's visage in the burnished metal casket, looking more like an eerie sculpture than a once-living man.

The funeral followed the next morning, attended mostly by family with a few friends and relatives. The day didn't match anyone's mood: sunny and too hot. Colin sweated under the suit coat as Father Frank performed the ceremony at the graveside. Colin stared at the now-closed coffin, sitting on straps over the cloth-covered hole. His mother cried during much of the ceremony, with Tommy and Jen on either side of her. Colin sat next to Jen, with Aunt Patty alongside him holding his hand.

There were crows in the trees near the plot. Colin could hear them calling to each other and see them moving in the branches as Father Frank gave his final blessing and sprinkled holy water over the coffin. He scowled past the priest toward the birds. “This concludes the graveside ceremony,” the funeral director said. “If everyone would return to their cars, please . . .”

There would be another gathering at the Doyle house, Colin knew—an interminable afternoon with sandwiches and drinks, with everyone paying too much attention to his mother and to Tommy as the Heir Apparent, while Jen and he hovered in the background. There'd be videos and pictures of his father on the flatscreen TV in the back room; his ghost would haunt the proceedings. Aunt Patty would probably ask him to play something—and some idiot in the group would call out for “Danny Boy”—or, as most of the Irish musicians Colin knew called it, “that feckin' song.”

Colin already anticipated drinking too much.

Everyone was gathering up the bouquets brought to the graveside to take them back to the cars. He went to help, but Tommy grabbed his arm. “Hey, little brother, you got a sec?” Tommy led Colin away from the crowd, into the shade of the tree where he'd seen the crows.

“Are you thinking of heading back to Seattle soon?” Tommy asked him. “I know you have that dissertation to write . . .”

Colin lifted his hand, stopping Tommy in mid-sentence. “Jen hasn't said anything to you?”

Tommy looked puzzled, shaking his head. “No. Why?”

Colin took a breath, then launched into what he'd told Jen: leaving school, how he wanted to return to his musical career, how he planned to go to Ireland. Talking to Tommy, who looked so much like their father, was like talking to a younger version of his father, one who, to his credit, listened patiently rather than angrily.

“Okay,” Tommy said when Colin finished. “That's absolutely not what I expected to hear. You really want to go to Ireland?”

“Yeah. As soon as I can. I need to get a visa first, so I can stay there for a few years. But as soon as that happens . . .”

Tommy nodded. “I won't try to talk you out of it, Colin. I know you and Dad . . . well, I know what Dad thought, but I also know that sometimes you have to follow your own heart, no matter what others think. I want to make you an offer, though. An alternative, if you like.”

That sounded more like their father. Colin frowned. “Yeah, what's that?”

“Stay here in Chicago—for the rest of the year, anyway. Help me. Be part of my campaign staff. I'm going to need all the support I can get.”

Colin was shaking his head as soon as he heard “campaign staff.”

“What are you talking about? You don't need my help, and that's not the kind of job that I'm suited for anyway. Besides, Harris says you're a shoo-in.”

Tommy shook his head. “That's what Carl wants everyone to believe, and it's what he wants to believe himself. But even he's worried about a candidate who's single and in his mid-30s.”

“Okay, so you're not married. So what?”

“Things have changed a lot over the years, and are continuing to change, but how many politicians do you know who are openly gay?”

Colin blinked, processing what Tommy had just said. “Gay? You mean...?”

Tommy nodded. “Yeah. That's what I mean. I guess we both had things we weren't saying to each other. Come on, Colin; you mean you never suspected that? Haven't you ever wondered why I was never dating anyone, why I never brought anyone home for Sunday dinners?”

“In high school and college, you did. I distinctly remember a couple girls.”

“Yeah. I did back then. First because I was in denial, then because I was using a few friends as beards so no one else, especially Mom and Dad, would suspect. But since then . . . well, if I haven't been open about it, I also haven't exactly been keeping it a secret.”

“Wow.” Colin didn't know what to say. All the air had gone from his lungs. As Tommy watched him, he took a breath, starting to speak, then shaking his head. “Mom and Dad? Jen? Do they . . .”

Tommy shrugged. “With Mom and Dad, it's always been ‘don't ask, don't tell.' They both stopped interrogating me about whether I was seeing anyone four or five years ago—that way they didn't have to be confronted with the truth, and I didn't have to lie. I think we were all happier that way. Jen knows; I think she suspected it even before I did, or before I was willing to admit it. Aunt Patty and Rebecca, too, of course—I told them a while ago. I'd've told you, but you had your own issues with Mom and Dad and were heading off to Seattle, and afterward it didn't seem like something to say in a phone call. And since you've come back . . .” He shrugged. “There really hasn't been a good moment for the two of us to sit down and really talk. I know this isn't one, either, telling you while we're burying Dad, but I was afraid that you might sneak back to the left coast if I waited any longer, and I really wanted . . .” Tommy stopped. “I really
needed
you to know,” he finished.

Colin ignored that. “What about Harris?”

Tommy seemed to smile. “Oh,
he
knows better than anyone,” he said, and something in his tone and the glance he cast back toward where Harris was leaning against Tommy's car made Colin suddenly suspicious.

“No.”

“Yep. 'Fraid so.”

“Harris is your . . . partner?”

“How do you think he got himself introduced to Dad?”

“Really? Harris?”

“Carl's a lot nicer when he doesn't have his campaign manager hat on. Honestly.”

“I guess I'll have to take your word for that. I haven't been very pleasant with him, though. I'm sorry.”

“He's used to it—that's part of the job. He doesn't take it personally. Look, I haven't come out publicly, but Carl says that the subject
will
come up once we're in the general election, so I need to do it soon before someone springs it as a surprise in the middle of the election. And honestly, I don't intend to lie if someone asks me the question directly . . .” His shoulder lifted again. “It's anyone's guess how things will go when the news gets out. When that happens, I'll need people around me I can trust, people I care about. That's why I'm asking. So . . . have I weirded you out sufficiently?”

Colin managed a wry grin. “You've managed to shock me a bit, yeah. It'll take me a while to wrap my head around this, but in the end, it doesn't change anything. You're still Tommy, you're still my brother, and I don't have a problem with anyone's sexual orientation. Don't worry.”

“Thanks. You don't know how much that means, little brother.” The two of them hugged, Tommy taking a long, slow inhalation that told Colin how unsure his brother had actually been. When they broke apart, Tommy looked back at the gravesite, where the workers were already preparing to fill in the grave. “I wish I'd told Dad the truth, even though I'm sure he'd already figured it out.”

Colin was also staring toward the casket. “Yeah. There's a lot I wish I had talked to him about, too. I hadn't left things in a very good place with him, and now . . .” The emotions threatened to overwhelm Colin again, and he let the rest trail away unsaid, not able to trust his voice.

“Yeah, I know.” Tommy's voice was rough and husky, and his hand touched Colin's shoulder and fell away again. “I know. I also know that he loved you and he was hoping to patch things up between the two of you when you came back next.”

“Why are you going to run for office, Tommy? Yeah, it's Dad's legacy and all that, but this is going to put a huge spotlight on your life, with all that entails, and there are people who are going to be upset and angry and furious with you. You could let someone else step in and save yourself all the grief. You could just keep your position at Dad's firm and not have to deal with any potential nastiness.”

“I know. But . . . this just
feels
right, like something I'm supposed to do. You understand that, don't you? It's like you with your music. Jen's the same way; teaching is exactly what she wants to do and what she enjoys doing. Dad . . . he wasn't any different, really. We Doyles have this sense of destiny, or a calling, of something that we're
supposed
to do, and we're most unhappy when we're not allowed to pursue it. That's when we get into trouble. Know what I mean?”

For a moment, the scene around them shivered, and Colin thought he could smell the sea and burning peat. Then it was gone. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

“So . . . you'll stay? Or go to Seattle and take care of whatever you need to take care of there, then come back here. I really could use you. I'd be able to pay you a consultant's salary—a good one—and if I'm elected, well, I could use someone I know I can trust on my staff, if that interests you.”

Above them, in the branches, a crow stirred, cawed, and flew away.

“I don't know. I'll think about it,” he told Tommy. “That's all I can say right now.” He clapped his brother on the back. “Thanks for trusting me, Tommy. That means a lot . . . even if I have to apologize to Har . . . I mean, Carl.”

Tommy laughed. “Well, c'mon and get it over with, then.”

The reception at the house was worse than Colin had imagined it would be.

The house had been filled with bouquets from the funeral home, their sickly sweetness competing with the smell of coffee and the various hors d'oeuvres Beth had prepared. The struggle between the clashing odors threaded through the haze of a dozen conversations and dutiful, apocryphal remembrances of Colin's father. Colin wandered the house, smiling and shaking hands, and enduring the pats on the back and the hugs from people he barely knew, the mindless niceties and clichéd condolences. He fled to his old room on the second floor after an hour or so, sitting on the bed his mother had prepared for him and staring at the walls—freshly-painted, with all his old posters and paintings carefully removed. It was a stranger's room. The only thing of his in it was a large plastic model of the Millennium Falcon he'd put together when he was twelve or thirteen, carefully dusted and sitting on an otherwise unadorned dresser top.