The Lost Bird (12 page)

He brushed past the housekeeper and walked through the kitchen to the small utility room that opened onto the outside stairway. Footsteps trailed behind.

“You’re gonna be real surprised,” Elena said.

He opened the back door and stared down the short flight of stairs at the redheaded woman seated in one of the patio chairs, Walks-On curled at her feet.

10

T
he woman lifted herself out of the webbed chair, a graceful, confident unfolding of her slim, attractive figure. She tilted her face and fixed him with the bluest eyes he’d seen in a long while. Intelligence and defiance mingled in her expression and enhanced her beauty. A mass of copper-colored hair caught the light of the sun dropping behind the mountains. Freckles sprinkled her nose and cheeks. Her lips were touched with red. She stood at the edge of the table, a small purse tossed on the top, the breeze plucking at her silver-colored blouse and black slacks. For an instant he felt as if two planes had collided—past and present—and he had been transported back twenty-five years, so strong was her resemblance to Eileen.

“Megan O’Malley,” he said, hurrying down the stairs. Walks-On raised his head and eyed him sleepily as he placed his arms around the girl.

She stepped out of his arms and fastened her eyes on his. “Hello, Uncle John,” she said. There was a hint of anger in her voice, or had he imagined it?

He kept one hand on her shoulder, scarcely believing she was here. No one in his family had visited in
the seven years he’d been at St. Francis. But who would come? Not his brother Mike. Certainly not Eileen, or any of their six kids—he still thought of them as kids. Yet Megan, the oldest, had to be about twenty-five, hardly the gangly sprite of a girl he remembered in his early visits to his brother’s home, before the visits had become so uncomfortable he’d decided to curtail them.

His visit last spring had been cordial. Perfectly cordial and formal. The youngest kids had trailed into the house—quick hellos, disinterested exchanges. He’d had to shake himself into the realization they were already in high school. The others were away: one in law school, another at Boston College. And Megan, an architect living in New York, engaged to be married.

“You look fantastic,” he said.

She gave him a mirthless smile. “Is that because I have red hair and freckles like you?”

His own laugh sounded forced and uncertain in his ears. “What brought you all the way to Wyoming?”

“Just a visit.” He caught the false note. Something was wrong. And she had come at the worst possible time.

As if she’d read his thoughts, she said, “Oh, I know about the murdered priest. Elena told me that it could have been you. Shouldn’t you close the mission and go away?”

“You sound like my boss,” he said, trying for a lighter tone.

“You have a boss?” The blue eyes widened in mock surprise. “I never thought of you as having a boss.”

“I have a lot of them, I’m afraid.” Father John shrugged.

“So you ignore them?”

“I do my best. Look, Megan,” he hurried on, “the mission might not be the safest place right now—”

“Something told me I had to come,” she interrupted. “Now I understand why I was drawn here. Elena said I could stay at the guest house.”

That explained why he hadn’t seen her car on the grounds. It was parked at the guest house behind Eagle Hall, and she was already settled in. He sighed. “Promise me you’ll be careful,” he said. “Don’t walk around the grounds by yourself at night.”

“Don’t worry about me,” she shot back. “I’ve been living in New York City for three years. I can take care of myself.” He saw by the way she pulled her gaze toward the dark ridge of mountains in the distance that there was something else on her mind.

The door squeaked above them, and he glanced around. Elena stood on the landing. “Dinner’s on,” she called. “Come eat while it’s hot.”

Megan scooped the purse from the table and, brushing past him, started up the stairs. The sun had disappeared, leaving an electric sky of reds and purples and oranges. Shadows had started to gather at the perimeters of the mission grounds, like animals stalking their prey.

He started after his niece. Walks-On trailed alongside, an easy lope up the stairs on three legs. In the kitchen, the dog headed for his rug. Elena led the way to the dining room. Sometimes he forgot about the hollow, dark space between the kitchen and living room. The last time he’d eaten there was two years ago, when the bishop had come for dinner. Elena had gotten out the mismatched china and yellowed tablecloths, the candles and brass candlestick holders, and
transformed the room into a place of warmth and comfort, like a real home, he had thought.

He saw that the housekeeper had worked the same magic this evening. Candlelight flickered over the tablecloth and licked at the white plates with tiny tongues of fire. He held a side chair for Megan before taking the end chair close to her. Within a moment Elena set bowls of hot stew in front of them.

“Please join us, Elena,” he said as she started toward the kitchen.

The housekeeper stopped. Leaning toward him, she sent him an accusatory glare. “My grandbaby’s birthday party’s tonight. Remember? I told you all about it.” The whisper of a memory came to him. Breakfast a couple of mornings ago. Elena stirring oatmeal at the stove and prattling on about an upcoming party. And he—he grimaced at the thought—half listening, sipping at his coffee, perusing the morning paper. “Besides,” the housekeeper was saying, “you need to have a good chat together, just the two of you. Don’t need no outsiders listenin’ in.”

“I wouldn’t call you an outsider.”

“Don’t see me with red hair, do you?” Slowly she ran a brown hand over the clumps of Megan’s red hair, as if to feel the color. Then, giving the young woman’s shoulder a little pat, she whirled around and slipped past the door.

Father John bowed his head over the stew, drawing in the hot, pungent odor as he said the grace out loud.
Bless us, O Lord, for these thy gifts
 . . . The words familiar, ingrained in his heart. Then he added, “Thank you, O Lord, for bringing Megan here today, and keep her and all of the people at St. Francis Mission safely in your care.”

Megan said nothing, eyes cast downward, like those of a convent girl whose thoughts were elsewhere. Wisps of steam lapped at the sprinkle of freckles on her face. He kept his gaze on her as he took a bite of the stew. It was delicious, a sharp reminder of the hunger he’d tried to ignore as he’d driven across the reservation this afternoon. She was poking her fork into her bowl, absentmindedly stirring the thick brown gravy and chunks of beef, carrots, and potatoes, eyes still cast down. Finally she raised her fork and nibbled at a chunk of potato.

From the kitchen came a scuffling sound, the rattle of keys. Elena stuck her head through the doorway. “I’ll be goin’ now,” she said. “Leave the dishes. I’ll tidy up tomorrow.” An announcement, he realized, that she
would
return tomorrow. And then she was gone, footsteps clacking in the hall, front door shutting.

Father John turned his attention to the young woman beside him. “What brought you here, Megan?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I wanted to see you.” There was a hard edge to her tone.

Father John took another bite of stew and waited for her to go on. When she didn’t he said, “Is everything okay between you and your fiancé?”

“Jay? This has nothing to do with Jay.” A mixture of amusement and anger flashed in the blue eyes. “He insisted I come. He’s been very supportive, even when I quit my job.”

“Quit your job?” Father John set his fork down and stared at her. Whatever lay beneath the confident exterior was darker and more troubling than he’d guessed.

“My boss said I could take two weeks.” A defensive tone. “What if I needed more time? I wasn’t sure how long I’d want to stay.”

“What’s troubling you?” His voice was soft. “What’s going on?”

Tears had begun to pool in her eyes and trickle along her cheeks, blurring the freckles. She raised a hand and wiped at the tears, leaving a sheen of moisture that caught the candlelight. Finally she said, “You really don’t know, do you? You don’t have a clue. All these years you’ve been busy being a priest, teaching and working at a mission . . .” She stopped and looked away. He realized he was holding his breath, waiting for the rest: drinking, trying to recover in Grace House.

She brought her gaze back to his. “You’ve gone on with your life,” she said. He felt a rush of gratitude she hadn’t completed the litany of his life. “Didn’t you wonder? Didn’t you ask yourself any questions?”

He had a sense of floundering, as if he were lost in the expanse of the plains, where everything looked the same, and he couldn’t spot a point of reckoning. “What is it I should understand? What is it I should know?”

She threw her napkin into the center of the table, pushed the chair back, and jumped to her feet. “That you have a daughter,” she said. “You should know that.”

Father John felt his mouth go dry, the air he was breathing turn to dust. He sat stunned, unable to make his legs lift his weight out of the chair. After a long moment he forced himself to his feet and, stumbling against the table, went after her. He caught her in the entry at the door.

“Coming here was stupid.” She yanked open the door. He took hold of her arm, but she wrenched away and slipped outside, breaking into a run down the sidewalk. He sprinted after her and, catching her by the arm again, pulled her to a stop. He clasped her shoulders, holding her tight.

“Don’t go, Megan. We’ve got to talk about this.” In the dim light slipping past the windows, he could see the tears flowing down her cheeks—a river. She was trembling in his arms, crying silently. “Please,” he said.

He felt her shoulders sinking, her muscles relaxing. With one hand lightly on her shoulder, he guided her back into the house. In the living room, he flipped on the lamp, his eyes never leaving hers as she sank into a corner of the sofa. The confidence and determination had evaporated. She looked like a scared child: the tears, the shaking hands.

He pulled a side chair over to the coffee table in front of the sofa and sat down across from her. In the glow of the lamplight, she seemed paler, her hair a burnished bronze. “There’s some terrible mistake, Megan,” he said, the counseling tone. “I’m your uncle. Your parents are my brother and his wife.”

She gave a startled laugh and turned her face away. “I know about you and my mother. I found the diary she kept when you were both at Boston College.”

Father John felt his heart turn over; he fought to catch his breath.
Eileen kept a diary.

“It was so . . .” She hesitated, still looking away, as if she could summon the memory from the shadows in the entry. “Weird, the way I stumbled onto it. Mom said I could take some old furniture from the attic. There was a bureau that I wanted behind some boxes.
I started pulling the boxes away when I saw the small books stacked in one of them. Old photo albums, I thought, so I decided to take a look. But they weren’t albums. They were diaries that Mom kept through high school and college. The last one was for 1974, the year I was born. I wondered what the year had been like for Mom, so I started reading.”

Slowly she brought her eyes back. The blue had deepened to the darkness of a thundercloud. Her world, he realized, had tilted on its axis; everything she had believed to be true dissolved into some formless mass. She threw her head back and laughed. It was the sound of hysteria. “What a joke! I’d idolized you all my life. My favorite uncle. A priest!”

Father John said nothing for a moment. Then, a whisper: “I don’t deny I once loved your mother very much.”

The lamplight flickered, as if a gust of wind had blown through the room. Megan’s eyes locked on his. “You abandoned her.” She spit out the words. “She was pregnant, and you abandoned her.”

“No,” he said.
He would never have abandoned her.
Silence dropped like a heavy curtain over the room. After a moment he asked if that was what Eileen had written in the diary.

“Not in so many words. But I can read between the lines. She married my . . .” A hesitation. “Mom married your brother three months after you went into the seminary, and I was born five months later. Figure it out.”