When Light Breaks (21 page)

“At this time in my life, my experiences with the nuns and priests is all positive. I live below St. Mary’s on the Hill—the Dominican church. I live with a God of the water and earth, of love. Nuns mean comfort and beauty and an explanation of a God I cannot understand: the wild Irish God of St. Patrick and the Celtic language that is unexplainable. So when I see this nun appear, my instinct is not one of fear, but one of relief. I step inside the door.”

Maeve closed her eyes, and I thought she was gone, but then she continued and I was there with her, in the Industrial School.

“The stone walls are cold to the touch, but high and grand. The furniture in the hall is dark and polished until you can see your face. Celtic hymns being sung come from the back of the hall, in a harmony so haunting I think my heart will burst. I feel no fear; there is no understanding of what I’ve stepped into, until the boy who answered the door begins to cry harder. Then the realization comes to me in a slow crawl of dread: this place is not one of refuge.”

Maeve stopped, looking directly at me. “Now, Kara. Here is where you must be careful. Not all things are as they appear to be. You must understand that this was the first time I had ever come to a place and time that appeared to be something it was not. I did not understand my visceral instinct. I was a thirteen-year-old child who had grown up in the Claddagh village.” Tears filled her eyes. “Not all things are as they appear.”

I shook my head to let her know I heard her, but I was afraid to speak, afraid to stop the flow of words. The sun sat warm on our shoulders, and tears threatened at the back of my eyes for this poor motherless boy, and this child-Maeve looking for him. Even if, as Caitlin had told me, this was not a true story, my heart ached for Maeve as she believed and remembered a pain that was real to her.

She brushed at a tear. “I look up at the nun—her habit so tightly wound around her head that her wrinkles are smooth. I tell her who I’m looking for, that he was taken when his parents died three months ago. The nun’s face registers nothing and my pain deepens.”

Maeve turned to me now. “Do you know this pain I mean, when you look and look and want and want and don’t find?”

I nodded my head, which was heavy and full of unshed tears.

“You know,” she said. “Already you know.”

She took a deep breath. “Then the boy—the one who’d answered the door—runs from us. The nun reaches for him, grabs his ear. He lets out a yelp like a puppy. He flicks her hand away and runs through the hall. The nun looks down at me. ‘Do your mam and da know where you are?’ she asks.

“I still believe she will be the one to help me, but doubts creep in and I do something I have never done: I lie to a nun. I wait for the bolt of lightning, the earth to swallow me whole. But this is my mission—to find Richard. I tell her that my mam has sent me to find him, as he is our neighbor and should live with us and not in a state home. Then this nun stands, calls out in a voice that sends shivers down my spine. Another tall, thin nun appears and looks at me. ‘This girl states she is looking for a Richard and that she has been sent by her mam to find him. Do you know such a child?’

“The other nun says ‘no.’ I hang my head and turn away. When I open the large doors, the tattered boy runs to me, reaches my side, looks up at me. ‘Richard is here. He’s here,’ he tells me. The nuns grab him by the cuff of his collar, pull him away. The older nun leans down and looks into my face and tells me, ‘This poor child lost his mind long ago. God bless his soul. He also thinks St. Patrick lives here.’ I nod at her, but I am feeling it for the first time.”

Maeve paused; I squeezed her hand. “Feeling what?”

“The Spirit talk to me.”

“The spirit?” Maybe Maeve was too senile to tell this story.

“Our prayer, the prayer of St. Patrick. ‘Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left.’

“I’d heard these words since I was a child; I probably heard Mam’s words echoing inside me. But it is there, in the Industrial School, that I finally feel it and know what it means as the Spirit whispers in my ear,
‘He is here.’
And I see the nun’s terrible lie spin and shimmer around me.”

“Richard was there?” I asked.

“Yes, he is there and I feel it in every way as the door slams behind me. I stand outside that locked door and weep as I have never wept. My world closes around me as evil threatens my soul. I have never experienced it before, as even in Richard’s parents’ death I felt only sorrow and grief, not evil.

“This is a terrible revelation for a child—that evil exists beyond the bogeyman and the drunk father.”

I nodded.

Maeve looked at me; tears filled her eyes, but did not fall. “Richard comes out a side door, bursts into the lane. We fall into each other’s arms, weep and hold on to each other. He is thin, so frightfully skinny I think he will break beneath my weeping. His clothes are more tattered than the rags my mum uses to clean the hearth.”

“Maeve, you saved his life,” I said as quietly as if we were in the lane, whispering to escape the nuns.

“But, Kara, it was for that moment only that I saved him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I took him home to my family knowing that they would take him in.”

“And of course they did.” I lifted my hands.

She shook her head so furiously that hairpins scattered, her bun released and her braids fell to her shoulders. “Three nights later, while I was sleeping, they came and took him again.”

“Who took him?”

“The Irish state. Mam and Da had called—afraid that Richard would bring peril to our family.”

“Dear God, Maeve.”

“You must understand the times, Kara. It wasn’t as it is now—there was mysticism mixed with religion mixed with ideas of the revolution. The Irish Civil War had started that year—1922. Michael Collins was assassinated. There was much fear. My mam and da still adhered to some of the Brehon Laws. According to this law, marrying Richard would have meant a level five or six in the Brehon order. I was too young to marry, too young to know my own heart, they said. Da only wanted a level-one marriage for me. This meant my husband and I must be equal—with the same financial means and from the same class. These were confusing times, and Richard’s mam and da had been involved in the Resistance. My mam was scared out of her mind that evil would come to us through Richard’s family.”

“What did you do?”

She looked at me, but her eyes were glazed, as though she wore thick contacts over her pupils. “It is the ache, you know?”

“The ache?”

“For him. For that time. For that adoration. But life is so much more than the ache you feel for the person or place. What you remember about that person, about that place has much more to do with what you felt then—an expansive time when you felt the most loved and believed you were loved.”

“But Richard . . . where was he?”

“Of course I went again to find him, but he was truly gone now. My Richard O’Leary.”

“O’Leary?”

Maeve’s head rolled back onto the bench. “When you felt the most loved.” She released a long, hollow breath. Her gaze wandered upward to the crystalline sky. Her body slumped forward. Her legs splayed open, forming a tent of her robe. My limbs went numb.

“Help over here,” I screamed, and grabbed Maeve’s body to keep it from falling to the ground.

White coats, hollering voices came running. They held Maeve, carried her to the building on a stretcher. I followed them. “What’s wrong with her? What happened? Is she okay?” Questions flew out of me like birds released from a cage; frenetic, eager, not knowing which way to go.

A nurse turned and grabbed my arm. “Stop. We will come and get you when we know what’s going on. Why did you take her outside?”

“She wanted to go.” I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the tears from coming.

“Mrs. Mahoney is not supposed to be out of bed without a nurse.”

“No one told me that.”

“You volunteers are supposed to ask for permission to go anywhere with these residents.”

“I’m sorry, so sorry. I wanted to help her, let her get some fresh air.”

The nurse placed her hand on my arm. “We’ll come get you when we know something. You can wait in the lobby.”

I nodded, fear mixing with my thoughts like the mud and sand at the marsh edge—unable to separate one from the other. I sat in the lobby and stared at the taupe-colored walls and the poster announcing Tuesday night bingo. Scattered thoughts, which would not stick for more than a moment, twisted inside me: Christ behind me, Industrial Schools, mail the invitations, Xerox the forms for Friday, tattered clothing, Christ under me, pot roast with potatoes, hints of the heart, Deirdre’s anger. Each thought begged for attention, and yet I sat in the lobby and observed them as passing strangers.

Finally I shook my hair out of its rubber band, walked to the front desk. “Any more information?” I asked the volunteer.

“On?” The woman in a shapeless tent dress looked up at me.

“Maeve Mahoney?”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “They didn’t come tell you?”

“No.” My throat constricted as if she’d leaned across the desk and grabbed my neck. “I guess I wouldn’t be asking you if they had.”

She grimaced. “They took her to Memorial Hospital an hour ago.”

“How did I miss them?”

“They go out the back door so as not to frighten visitors and other residents.”

I stepped toward the door with my heart beating differently—not faster, not slower, just more . . . sporadically, then I ran to my car to drive to Memorial Hospital.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

P
eyton sat across the restaurant table from me. My glass of wine sat untouched, my food growing cold as he stared at me.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Kara. Have you lost your mind?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I thought you’d think this was interesting, an adventure.”

“Okay, let me get this straight. You want to add more work to your plate—give yourself one more thing to do.”

I closed my eyes. He might be right—I didn’t need one more thing to do. I grimaced. “I’ve just been thinking about it and I thought I’d tell you.”

Peyton wiped his mouth with a linen napkin, then stood. “I’ll be right back.” He patted his waistband. “Mark is beeping me and I’ve been trying to get hold of him all day about this investment.”

Peyton drew his cell phone from his side pocket and walked off. I nodded, picked up my fork, and pushed the uneaten food around on my plate. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought up my newly born desire to go to photography school. When I got to Memorial Hospital that morning and was told Maeve was in a coma and I couldn’t see her, my first regret had been that I had never taken a picture of her. The more I realized how much I wanted one, how much I relied on my camera to preserve my life’s moments, the more I understood I wanted to learn about photography, about light and dark, about f-stops and film speeds.

I’d called the Savannah College of Art and discovered that one could major in photography, that there were over thirty-five different classes I could take on the subject. My college degree was in management and had nothing to do with art, with photography. I’d gone online and sat for over an hour reading the descriptions of each photo class, of the myriad techniques I could master. My heart had sped up and I felt that, for the first time since Daddy told me what Mama had said, I understood what she meant by feeling the hints of the heart. I’d sent away for an application without knowing any details, without determining whether I’d take evening or day classes. All I’d understood was that I needed to know more.

I wanted Peyton to be the first person I told, the first one to see and hear my new desire unfold. Now I only felt a bruise below my ribs, as if his negativity and disinterest had hit me from the inside like a dense punch.

He sauntered around the corner, sat down. “Sorry, darling.”

“I understand.” I dropped my fork onto the table.

“So.” He took a sip of water. “How are the wedding plans coming along? Have you talked to Mom lately about the rehearsal dinner?”

“Peyton—” I took a deep breath. “I was trying to tell you about—”

“I know, I know—photography school. Are you sure this is a good time to be taking on another big project? Are you sure this is the right time to start something new? We’ve got a huge tournament, a wedding and a life to start. Going to SCAD would mean a long commute to Savannah. You have to look at all the factors here, Kara, be logical. Do you want to be going to school, working and raising a family?”

“What?” My right hand clenched into a fist below the table.

“Kara.” He leaned forward, grabbed my left hand in his. “I want you to pursue your . . . hobbies. I really do. I’m just trying to be the voice of reason here. Maybe there is a better time to do this.”