Daughter of Australia (8 page)

A
nd so they healed.

Supplies came first—lumber, mortar, bricks, nails, shingles—the tools to patch the orphanage. Plants and animals came second—trees, seeds, sheep and chickens—the tools to sustain it. Next, wooden crates hauled new textbooks from Australia, not from England, textbooks where Australia's history didn't end in the early part of the century, where more discoveries than the first Swan colony filled its pages and the maps proved that yes, Western Australia was a territory. Leonora's money, though not a lot, had gone far and Father McIntyre held no more regret in using it.

And so they healed.

James's hand mended and its wound left no scar, but the memory of his knuckles against bone had changed him. He hated cruelty, violence—it made him sick to his stomach—but this was different; this had been justice and he'd known nothing of it before. He had always felt the jabs and punches of inaction, a helplessness that soured and left him weak. But justice tingled his blood.

His mother's diary still held tight to his back at every moment, though gone was the fear of its discovery. And in the parts that he read the etchings of a mother and a father had begun to take form and they spoke to him with guidance. His mother was closest when he smiled or smirked or sat quiet without scowl. This woman was made of sun and warm breezes and the perfume of flowers. His father was closest when he worked or studied hard, when he grunted under the weight of filled burlap or galloped the horses at top speed. This man was made of earth and strong wind and the scent of freshly scythed grass. But he never felt his father so close as when he clobbered those boys and his father whispered in his ear, not with malice or with hate, but with righteousness. And when it was done, and his hand lay cut and open, there was approval and pride. For a man, a
man,
stands up for those who can't stand or speak for themselves.

And so they healed.

James was quiet next to Leonora and even the waves seemed hushed below their dangling feet. She scanned his profile, searching for the reason of his silence and with clear worry that she was the one who had caused it. But she needn't have worried. His silence was active and slightly embarrassed and had everything to do with the butterflies dancing in his stomach.

James stood suddenly and reached inside a hollow log cradled between roots. He returned with hands behind his back. He stared at the ground between them for a moment before thrusting out a hand, a brown-papered package held in his palm. “It's for you, Leo.”

James bent to his knees and watched as her thin fingers pulled at the light rope that gathered the paper in a neat pinch. The brown paper opened and she did not move, did not blink.

“I made it,” he hurried, then swallowed. “I've been working on it for weeks.” His nerves twitched under the silence. “Do . . . do you like it?”

Still she did not raise her head or flicker an eyelash and his chest fell. He was a fool! A pile of sticks—tiny sticks intertwined with yellow feathers into a scrawny nest. He wanted it to remind her of the bird, the happy memories. He had even smoothed a small, white stone to a perfect egg and placed it in the middle. But it was fragile and rudimentary and laughable.

He blushed. “It's stupid. Never mind.” He grabbed for it, but she pulled it to her chest defiantly and her eyes were stretched and wet.

He sat back then on his heels and the butterflies left his stomach and he knew she saw the beauty in the gift. She carefully pulled the brown paper away and let it float to the ground while she cradled the round weave of sticks and feathers delicately in her palm. She picked up the tiny stone egg and held it to the sun where it reflected perfectly in the light. She touched the yellow feathers tenderly, a slight smile upon her lips with a beautiful memory. When she looked at him again, her eyes were two glistening pools of wonder and gratitude.

Then the winds hushed and a new sound, never before part of the sea or the cliffs, a sound as delicate as flower petals and as beautiful as the tiniest songbird, wafted from the softest of souls. Leonora's lips parted. “Thank you.”

And so they healed.

T
he medic's tent differed little from the diggers' save for size. Cream canvas, squared with four corner poles then peaked in the center with two more, could have been a tent for a traveling circus except that tickets were limbs and not a soul was begging to get in, just out.

Ghan hobbled to the tent, pulled back the heavy curtain door that flapped half-opened. The smell of ammonia, alcohol and lye, a three-ringed antiseptic nightmare, hit as a wall and he nearly turned back, but his wooden peg leg was stuck an inch in the mud.

“For the love a Jesus!” he cursed. The ground sucked like a wet kiss as he pulled the end free. He scanned the mud for its source, looked at the pitched roof for a leak, then asked to no one, “Where the 'ell all the water come from?”

“They sprayed the tables off,” said a man smoking in the corner on a small wooden chair. A wool blanket hung from one shoulder and crossed his chest.

“Yeh, Bianchi?” Ghan asked. The man nodded, his face dripping with sweat.

“Crikey, yeh must be roastin' like a pig in that blanket.”

The man's eyes were all pupils as he took another drag of the cigarette. His hand quaked violently. But it was cold terror that wet his face, not heat.
Poor bastard.
Ghan's stomach turned queasy. The canvas held in the humidity, suffocated the fresh air and reeked with sweet, rancid blood. He wanted to vomit.

Ghan's wooden leg picked blindly over the wet spots and clopped on the dry until he could safely sit down next to the man. Ash spilled from the stuttering cigarette onto the blanket, but the bloke was too lost in pain and fear to notice.

“Yer arm?” Ghan asked. No need to mince words.

The man nodded, glanced at the blanket's raised bump.

“Took my leg 'bout a month ago,” confided Ghan.

Bianchi looked at the wooden leg and swallowed. He took a hard inhale of tobacco smoke, sucking his cheeks all the way in, and then threw the stub into the mud where it simmered. “I can't do it,” the man said, defiant.

“Yeh gotta choice?”

“Maybe.”

“Whot happened?”

“Burned,” he said, paling further. “Nearly all the way through.”

“Then ain't much left, is there?”

The man shot him a look of anger, then helplessness, his face gaunt with pain.

“Yeh got no choice,” Ghan explained. “If yeh want that pain t'stop, yeh got no choice. Can't walk round wiv that arm sizzlin'.” Bianchi smelled like a half-cooked chicken on an old fire pit. Ghan held his breath from the stink, couldn't look at the table or the tools.
Damn that doc for leaving them out on display like that.

“The doc is good. It'll be quick,” Ghan lied. “ 'Fore yeh know it, the sizzlin' stop an' yeh'll be good as rain again.”

“But it's my arm.
My arm!
” The black pupils widened and Bianchi leaned in with panic. “Gawd damn it, a man's gotta have his arms. I got kids! How'm I gonna feed 'em?” He looked at Ghan's wooden leg with disdain. “One leg ain't stoppin' nobody. Yeh can still move; yeh can still work. Just gotta piece a wood 'stead of bone there now. But a man needs his hands, gawd damn it!”

Ghan narrowed his eyes. “Yeh done whinin', yeh pussy?” The man drew back with the verbal slap. “Got news for yeh, Bianchi. Yeh ain't got no arm. Know whot yeh got? Yeh got a stub of a match left hangin' there, so stop cryin' for somepin yeh ain't got anyway!” The young man's lips parted and drooped, the corners stuck with dried saliva.

“Yeh'll still work, Bianchi.” Ghan tempered his tone. “Those kids of yers still get fed. Morrison's already got a place for yeh in the pickin' line. Not so bad, that pickin'. Done it m'self. Borin' as all 'ell, but safe. Won't need t'worry 'bout no more burns.” The man was listening intently and Ghan continued, “They'll give yeh a hook or somepin. Won't be pretty, but yeh won't be crippled. One hand's all yeh need for pickin' anyway.”

Bianchi's fingers rose to his mouth before he realized he didn't hold the cigarette any longer. He drew his hand into a fist and dropped it back to the blanket. “Does it hurt?”

“Naw.” Ghan shrugged. “Not so bad.” Blood ran from his face and he worried he might vomit all over the wool blanket. The sound of saw against bone ground in his ears.

Strange thing about pain,
he thought.
Always worse when you know it's coming.
Ghan knew pain like a lifelong foe, but this kind of pain was different. He'd lost parts to explosions, to brawls with hard right hooks, but you never saw it coming, didn't even feel anything when it was happening, only felt it after the surprise wore off. But when a man plans for pain, waits for it and watches for it, sees the person who's going to give it and the tools he's going to use, the pain starts before anything even happens.

Ghan wasn't going to show this man his pain before it happened. Bianchi would see it soon enough. Any luck, the man would faint before the cutting started. “Doc has morphine,” Ghan lied again. “Yeh'll hardly feel it.”

Morphine. That's what the doc said it was.
Won't feel a thing.
Last thing the butcher said before he rammed a bullet between Ghan's teeth.
Morphine, my arse!
Gave him something that made him feel drunk but didn't numb the pain, just made him feel drunk and out of control, out of his mind with pain but too drunk or stupid to do anything about it.

The memories and the pain came back too quickly and his stomach cramped and kicked. Ghan rose stiffly. “I'll get the doc. Be over 'fore yeh know it.” He fled the tent in jagged steps, galloped to the nearest tree and vomited.

M
orning dew held silver upon the grass, sparkled spiderwebs and dampened the soles of Father McIntyre's shoes as he met the postman in the arc of the road. He smiled at the sound of the fairy-wrens, their chirps waning with the morning light, fading away and evaporating like the mist in the sun. “Beautiful morning, isn't it, Mr. Cook,” Father McIntyre greeted.

The postman pulled his head out of the canvas, his neck skinny, his face dark as cowhide. “Mornin', Father. Didn't hear yeh on the stones.” He lifted a stack of letters tied with twine and handed them to the priest. “Saw yer ad in the paper.” The postman scratched inside his large ear, then inspected his finger. “Gettin' many bites?”

“A few,” he said sullenly. “Have two families coming this week to meet the children.”

Mr. Cook scrunched up his face. “That's a good thing, ain't it, Father? Gettin' 'em children adopted is a good thing, no?”

Sure it's a good thing,
Father McIntyre answered in his mind. Just like the cliffs and the ocean were good things. But they all made his head spin and his stomach drop. “Yes.” Father McIntyre gave a weak smile. “It's a good thing.”

Footsteps barreled onto the gravel. “Did it come?” James huffed between breaths.

The postman grinned, settled his hands on his hips. “Expectin' somepin, son?”

Father McIntyre patted James on the shoulder and rolled his eyes. “He's been waiting for a letter from Ireland. I told him not to get his hopes up.”

“Ho! T'day's yer lucky day, m'boy!” Mr. Cook clapped his hands. “Saw one in there. From Limerick, I think.”

Father McIntyre's stomach dropped again. He shoved the letters into the crook of his arm, locking them with his elbow.

“G'day, gorgeous.” Mr. Cook tipped his hat at the silent girl who joined them, then turned his attention back to the priest. “Be on m'way, now. See yeh in a few weeks, Father.”

“Please open it, Father!” James begged as he held Leonora's hand, squeezing it in pulses.

With a sigh, Father McIntyre untied the pile of letters, shuffled until he found a thin blue envelope with an Irish stamp, the paper soiled and smudged. He ripped the glue that held the back flap and pulled out the card, read the words and blanched. He read them again, his eyes bobbing left to right, his jaw clicking near his ear.

James followed the priest's movements. “What'd it say?”

Father McIntyre closed his eyes. “I'm sorry, son.”

“What?” The boy blinked fiercely and tightened his grip on Leonora. “What did it say?”

“There's no one there, James.” He couldn't look at the boy. “I'm sorry.”

“But the l-l-letter,” James stammered. “It . . . it was . . . they sent it.”

“The letter was from a priest I know outside Limerick.” Father McIntyre exhaled and his eyes shifted under the lowered lids. “The O'Connells are all gone. They've either moved away or . . . passed. I'm sorry, son.”

James dropped Leonora's hand.

“James . . .” Father McIntyre reached for the boy, but James jumped from his touch. He spun on his heels, splaying gravel as he ran, his head and shoulders plowing forward like a bull with a sword through his neck.

Father McIntyre's own sword lodged in his heart as he watched the boy hurl across the trail, felt Leonora's grief-brimmed eyes upon his skin. “He'll forget with time, Leonora.” His voice was hollow and distant but crisp as ice water. “He just needs time.”

Leonora stepped away, her feet angled toward the cliffs.

“Just leave him be, Leonora.” Father McIntyre reached for her. “Give him space.” But she was already gone.

A great loneliness hung in their wake. He should have never written the letter, and guilt spit cruelly. And so the priest did not rush but walked soberly and carefully upon the bleached pebbles until he reached that invisible line that he did not have the fortitude to pass. There, from the ridge where the sea is first seen and teases in a line above the cliffs, he saw James with toes pointed at the edge of the world, his arms clasped around his knees. Leonora stood behind.

James turned to her and shouted harshly through the sound of waves, pushed her away. The girl did not move. James leaned toward her and shouted again, his face red and wet with tears and anger. But still she stood, her arms hanging loose and immobile. James pounded the ground with his fist and then turned back to the sea and buried his head into his knees.

Leonora moved now. She inched beside him and lowered to the ground. Her tiny, thin arms wrapped around the boy's shoulders. James struggled against the embrace and she tightened her hold, her arms rigid as steel as she held him as a mother would a child. She rested her head atop of his and held his spine up. This waif of a girl did not let go but held his shoulders so they did not break and she took his burdens and carried them against her own sloped shoulders and her thin spine. And there upon the cliffs where the sea worked daily to beat the sandstone to crumbs, there could be no distinction of one child's grief from the other's.

A terrible thickness crowded the Father's throat and his nostrils flared to keep the tears at bay. This child comforted James when he could not. He brought James suffering and this child brought him warmth. The thickness softened in his throat, but the lines of his jaw grew rigid. Father McIntyre turned away from the children petulantly. To console was easy; to cause a child pain for his own good, for his own future, now that took brute, hard strength.

Father McIntyre stomped down the path, stomped away the tenderness, the warmth and the innocence. He kept his head down as he entered the church and slammed the door to his office. He dropped the pile of worn and traveled letters onto his desk, spilling them out of the loose twine. James's face, the boy's raw and open grief, pinched his mind. He covered his face with his hands, rubbed his eyes to rid them of the image. He should have never sent the letter. He could have spared the boy this pain. Father McIntyre pulled his fingers down his face. James would heal in time, he tried to remind himself. Maybe he'd even thank him one day.

The Father sat in his chair and leaned back, rocked against the natural bend of its frame. The fingers of one hand danced against the knuckles of the other until he stopped abruptly and snatched the open letter off the top of the pile. He read it again, carefully this time, and the petulance swirled to anger. He was angry he had written the letter. But he was angrier they had written back. Angry they were alive and wanted James.

His prejudice bubbled now. Some poor Irish farmer wanted James. His James. They shared a name and now they wanted him. For what? To plant potatoes and pull a donkey cart? Pull him out of school and work the brains right out of him? That was not the life for the boy—not for James. Not for his James. Name or no name, blood or not, the boy belonged here.

The letter was sent more than three months ago. His eyes settled on the last line, read it again and again until his blood chilled. They were saving money, coming to Australia.

Father McIntyre held up the letter, pinched the corners with thumb and index finger and tore the paper to pieces, sprinkled the scraps into the wastebasket. “Over my dead body.”