Whiskey Island (56 page)

A million sentences filled her head. In one way or another she’d been talking to him since the night he’d walked out on her. But now, as each sentence struggled to be freed, she heard herself ask if he would like some tea.

“You know the way I like it, Kathleen.”

She stood perfectly still. “I’m not Kathleen, Rooney. I’m Megan, your daughter.”

He chuckled, as if this were a worthy joke.

She knew she resembled her mother. Kathleen Donaghue had been short and womanly. Although Megan had gotten her red hair from her father, everything else about her had been handed straight down from Kathleen. Her insubstantial nose, her brown eyes, her ability to see straight to the heart of a matter and plan for action.

Tonight, Kathleen’s clear-eyed wisdom was failing her daughter.

The kettle boiled, sending puffs of steam into the dimly lit room. Megan was at the stove before she knew she’d moved, turning off the burner and lifting the kettle. She poured the water over tea leaves dusting the bottom of a brown stoneware pot.

“I do know the way you like it.” She faced him, sorry that the light wasn’t brighter. From this distance his features were little more than a blur. “Strong, with lots of milk and sugar. Enough sugar to stand a spoon on end.”

He chuckled, then seemed to falter. “Haven’t had it that way for a while.”

“No, I guess you haven’t.”

“Had to give it up.”

She suspected he wasn’t talking about a health risk. His entire life was a health risk. “Why, Rooney? You always loved your tea.”

“You give up what they tell you to.” He sounded as if she should know that.

“Who tells you, Rooney?”

He didn’t answer.

She tried a different approach. “But it’s all right if you have it now?”

“It’s over. Tried to keep it all safe.” He shook his head. He didn’t appear sad. In fact, he registered little emotion even when he laughed, as if feelings had been bled out of him drop by drop. The man who was left was even more of a stranger than she had expected.

She was shaking. She realized it when she tried to lift the teapot to carry it to the table. She took a deep breath, and the journey was uneventful. She didn’t join him yet. She went to the refrigerator for milk, the cupboard for sugar, back to the counter for two mugs. Then, at last, she crossed to the table and sat down across from him.

The man who stared back at her was a caricature of the father she had known.

Had she still needed proof, she had it now. The man across from her
was
Rooney Donaghue, as surely as she was Megan, his eldest daughter. At the same time, he was someone new, someone who existed on the same physical plane, but who had been so thoroughly transformed that only traces were left as evidence.

The eyes were the same. The cloudiness behind them was not. The features were similar, except that hard times had relentlessly battered them. The face itself was wrinkled and dirty, the face of a man who had aged four years for every one he had lived. He was stooped and ancient beyond his time.

He was a man racked by forces he couldn’t control.

Her own life had been built on a foundation of lies she had told herself. Had she been able to admit that Rooney’s illness was not a weakness of will but a devastating onslaught, she might not have found the strength to take his place in the family. She might have looked for signs of his illness in herself and her sisters, questioned every errant thought or inexplicable desire. She might have given in to despair or railed against a universe that had allowed such a thing to happen.

Instead, to survive, she had villainized a man who had suffered untold misery. Not because he was weak, but simply because he was sick.

“Rooney.” She stretched out her hand, not quite touching his, but linking them in some fundamental way. “I’m so glad to see you again.”

That sentiment seemed to penetrate the fog that had settled over him. “I know where you live.”

“Do you?”

“At the saloon.”

She didn’t contradict him. “You lived there, too. In the apartment upstairs. With Mother, Casey, Peggy and me. Do you remember?”

He didn’t seem offended by the question. In fact, it didn’t seem to affect him at all. She saw no sign of hearing loss, but there was a definite loss in his ability to meaningfully translate the spoken word.

“I need a bath.”

“Yes. You can take one here. Would you like one now?”

“Tea first.”

The tea wasn’t strong enough yet, but she wasn’t sure how long he would stay around if she didn’t pour it. She fixed his cup the way he liked it and set it in front of him. “Are you hungry, too? I could fix you something to eat.”

“Rosaleen’s recipes.” It wasn’t a question, merely a statement.

“I still use Rosaleen’s recipes, Rooney. I make them for our customers at the saloon.”

“Grandma Lena. She was my father’s grandmother.”

Megan forgot to breathe.

He looked up, and her expression seemed to interest him. “Her hair was red. My mother told me. Like yours. Like mine.”

His hair was now gray, but she didn’t correct him. “Her name was Lena?”

“Rosaleen.”

“But you called her Grandma Lena?”

“She was old, but she was still pretty. She put me on her lap and told stories.”

“Do you remember the stories?”

“The stars took them. They’re gone now. She’s gone, too. With the stars…” He looked surprised that he had to explain.

Megan was silent as he sipped his tea. The illness that had consumed him had not yet destroyed his manners. He didn’t gulp, and he didn’t slurp. In many ways, he seemed just like anyone.

When the silence had gone on long enough, she rose and rummaged through Niccolo’s cabinets, coming up with crackers and, in the refrigerator, a block of white cheddar. She sliced the cheese and put it on a plate with the crackers, and set it in front of him, along with an apple from the bowl of fruit on the counter.

“Just in case you’re hungry.”

“Food’s everywhere.”

She remembered what Niccolo had said about his conversation with Rooney. She sensed that once again he was trying to reassure her—this time directly—that he was well fed. “Not all of it’s as good as that cheese,” she said, trying to smile.

“You always did like cheese.”

Her mother had not. Megan remembered this clearly. Kathleen Donaghue had disliked it to the point of refusing anything with cheese as a garnish. Perhaps Rooney knew who she was, after all.

“So did you,” she said. “Do you remember the way we would sneak down to the saloon at night and cut slices from the blocks of cheddar in the refrigerator?”

He didn’t answer, but he did pick up a cracker, place a cheese slice on it and nibble at the edges. Perhaps it was the best he could do.

Megan wished that Niccolo would return. Surprise and shock were quickly being replaced by desperation. She had Rooney here right now, and she wanted him to stay. Niccolo might know how to accomplish that, but she was afraid that if
she
tried to persuade him, she would only make matters worse.

As if he could feel her anxiety, he pushed away the plate and his half-filled mug. He showed his first real emotion. His eyes welled with tears. “A man died. I saw.”

She stared at him. “What man?”

“Whiskey Island.”

“On Whiskey Island? Or at the saloon, Rooney?”

“Couldn’t do a thing. The stars saw, but it’s over for them now. They moved on. They don’t see.”

She wondered if he had witnessed the shooting tonight. If once again he had been in the saloon parking lot, if he haunted it because he remembered, in the part of his mind that was still untouched, that he had lived there and abandoned his daughters there.

She didn’t want to tell him that Casey had pulled the trigger of a gun tonight. He might or might not know that already, but if he didn’t, it might upset him more.

She struggled for an explanation. “A man came into the saloon and tried to…get something that didn’t belong to him. He had a gun, and there was a fight. He was shot, but not killed. He’s going to be fine, Rooney. No one else was hurt, and no one died.”

“He died. He should have. But no one was supposed to know. Now they do.”

“No, Rooney. He’s in the hospital. Really. And when he gets out, he’ll probably go to jail.”

“He was a terrible man. The stars were watching. All these years. No one is supposed to know. I looked away. Didn’t pay attention.” Tears spilled down his cheeks. “I tried. I tried.”

She wanted so badly to comfort him, but how? “Are you talking about the shooting tonight at the saloon? Or about something else?”

“Grandma Lena told stories. Grandpa Rowan knew endings. I wasn’t supposed to look away. But I did. Now they know….”

“Rooney, whatever it is, you’re not at fault.” She felt adrift at sea, as confused in her way as he was in his. “Are you talking about the body they found on Whiskey Island? Is that what you mean? It’s not your fault they dug up a body. It has nothing to do with you.” She paused, trying to find a shared point of reference. “Maybe the stars just thought it was time. Maybe they didn’t want you to have to pay attention anymore.”

He looked up. Tears sparkled in the dirt-lined creases of his face. “I was to keep the secret. Megan was to keep it after me.”

She continued trying to feel her way. “You don’t have to worry. I’ve kept Rosaleen’s recipes a secret, Rooney. No one else knows them. I’ll pass them on, just the way you passed them on to me.”

“I don’t know what to do now.”

“I do,” she said, even though she didn’t. “It’s time for you to take care of yourself. To come home and let the people who love you help you. You don’t have to worry about anything or anyone else, Rooney.” She tried a shot in the dark. “If it’s over, it’s over.”

He stared at her for a long time, and she wondered what or whom he saw.

He spoke at last, just before her own self-control snapped. “I’d like a bath.”

“Of course.” She leaped to her feet. “I could wash your clothes while you’re taking your bath. You could wear something of Nick’s until your things dry….”

“I wash them.”

She wanted to argue but knew better. “May I find you some clean clothes to put on, then? You can wash your own things next chance you get.”

He didn’t agree or disagree. He stood and started out of the kitchen. She tailed him, guiding him toward the downstairs bathroom, which had a shower but not a tub, though he didn’t seem to mind or even notice. When he stepped inside, she found him a towel and washcloth in the corner cupboard, and a new bar of soap.

“I’ll find you some clean clothes and leave them by the door.”

He looked as if being fussed over was something he had to tolerate to get what he needed.

He closed the door in her face, and she was left staring at recently refinished oak.

She was separated by a door from the man she had once loved almost beyond endurance. For the first time since those terrible days after his desertion, she let herself feel the grief. Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She touched the door, traced the molded paneling, and wept silently for everything she and her sisters had lost.

How could she keep him here? How could she get him the help he needed? She could call Niccolo and ask him to come home. Then, together, perhaps they could talk Rooney into admitting himself to the hospital. But how could they talk to a man who spoke a different language? Whose reference points were stars and long-dead ancestors?

She considered calling Uncle Frank, who might be able to use his influence to convince a judge that Rooney had to be committed. But how fair was that to her father? He would be terrified. He would see her interference as an attack, not an act of love. He wasn’t even sure from one moment to the next who she was.

He had come back. On his own. And while he had been away, he had survived, if not flourished. He was moving slowly homeward. If she waited, if they all waited, might he not come home on his own for the help he needed?

The shower ran until she was sure there was no more hot water. She found clothes in Niccolo’s drawers that would do, silently apologizing for taking them, even though she knew Niccolo would understand. She set the small pile in the hallway, then went back to the kitchen to wait.

The water stopped, and she heard the bathroom door open. She imagined him standing there, groping for the clothes she had left for him. She would give him time to dress; then she would try to persuade him to stay. Until Niccolo returned. Niccolo, who always seemed to know what to do in a crisis.

Niccolo, the only person with whom she’d ever been willing to share her burdens. Niccolo, who had said she didn’t need him but needed
them,
together.

For the first time she felt the truth of that deep in her heart. Not because she faced a turning point, but because she understood, finally, what it meant to be part of something greater. She had always been part of a family, but she had always stood apart, too. After Rooney’s desertion she had never trusted anyone else to do what was best. She had never completely given her heart again, or given up control.

She heard another door click, and for a moment her heart leaped because she thought Niccolo had returned in time to help her decide what to do. But when she didn’t hear his footsteps in the hall, she realized the truth.

In the hallway outside the bathroom the fresh clothes she’d laid out for Rooney were still neatly piled in front of the door. But the door was open, and Rooney was gone.

He had not disappeared without a trace. She knelt by the pile and stared at a small leather-bound journal he’d set on top. Then she lifted it and folded back the cover to read the spidery-lettered inscription.

Niccolo would not find Father McSweeney’s journal in the archives of St. Brigid’s tonight. Because Megan clutched it to her chest.

June 29, 1883

A
s a priest I am asked to love God beyond all else, and to sacrifice, just as he sacrificed for me. But since God is perfect, and the sacrifice of his son a perfect sacrifice, how difficult is it to love him perfectly?