One Year (16 page)

M
ary Bernadette contemplated the arrangement of Sweet Williams on the credenza in the dining room. Her hands were folded before her, almost in an attitude of prayer. Her thoughts were fifty-three years in the past. It was on a bright April morning much like this one that she had discovered that she was pregnant with her first child.

She could still remember leaving the doctor's office, overcome with a happiness she had never known existed. She had been brimming with laughter (indeed, it had been difficult not to indulge in it) and goodwill and lightheartedness. “I am going to be a mother,” she had whispered to the world, hardly able to believe her good fortune. And then in the front yard of the house adjacent to the doctor's she had spotted a bunch of Sweet Williams, and in that instant she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the child she was carrying was a boy. Her dreams had been answered. He would be named William after her father and brother. She had rushed home, eager to tell Paddy the good news, though she knew he wouldn't be home from the factory until evening. When he finally did arrive, she threw herself into his arms and with a flood of grateful tears told him that he would soon be a father. His joy had been almost as great as hers.

When Mary Bernadette was seven months pregnant they bought the house on Honeysuckle Lane, and she began her garden by planting Sweet Williams. She read in the seed catalogue that the delicate clusters of flowers in combinations of red and pink and white had long been a symbol of gallantry and fidelity, appropriate she thought to describe the Williams in her life. Later, after her son's early death, she had no doubt that he would have grown to display those virtues as well as many fine others. Consider the way in which he had so joyfully greeted her each morning when she came into his room, his smile wide and his eyes bright, his arms outstretched in welcome. Consider the way in which he had taken to kissing both of her cheeks each night before bed, first the right and then the left. Consider how very early on he had learned to share his toys with other children. Mary Bernadette put her hand to her heart. After all these years she could still feel the silkiness of his hair. She could still smell the sweetness of his skin after his bath. She could still feel the warm pressure of him asleep against her chest. She could still hear his voice saying “Mama.”

Mary Bernadette moved the vase of flowers to the left a fraction of an inch so that it was in the exact center of the cloth beneath it. Carefully she wiped a drop of water from its side. In and of itself the vase was not worth more than the money she had paid for it. It was the fact that she took it out of her bedroom closet only for this one important occasion—to mark the anniversary of that glorious day when she learned she was with child—that gave it great value. In truth, it was the second vase to display her Sweet Williams. Pat had broken the first one when he was eleven. Mary Bernadette had been so very angry with him and had punished him accordingly. For three weeks he hadn't been allowed to see his friends after school, or to attend softball practice, or to watch television. She had taken him to see Father Murphy, who had given the boy a stern lecture on the Fifth Commandment. Pat was made to write, “Thou shalt honor thy father and mother” one thousand times and deliver it to Father Murphy the following Sunday.

Pat had been bewildered by his mother's severe response to the destruction of what he saw only as a “stupid old vase.” But she had told him time and again not to throw his football around in the house. And time and again he had disobeyed her orders. The broken vase was the last straw. Paddy attempted to talk her into lessening the boy's punishment, but she had walked out of the room even as he was speaking.

To this day Mary Bernadette was ever so slightly embarrassed about the severity of her reaction to her son's misbehavior. Still, she had never apologized to the boy or, later, to the man. It would have required more courage (yes, she could admit that) than she had been—or was now—able to muster. It would have taken her too close to the subject of William, and she had made a solemn vow never to mention him to either of her surviving children.

With a final glance at the perfectly arranged flowers, Mary Bernadette went up to her bedroom. She opened the bottom drawer of her dresser and looked down at a small wooden box nestled among the neatly folded cotton cardigans.

It had all happened so quickly. One day William had come down with a cough. A week later, his breathing had become labored and a sudden high fever would not break. The family doctor urged Mary Bernadette and Paddy to take the child to the emergency room. They did. William was admitted immediately. And three days later he was dead.

She had been with her son when he died, and even if she lived to be one hundred years old she would never, ever forget the sheer horror that had overtaken her in that stale and murderous place. When the time had come for her to leave William, she had raged. It was the one and only time Mary Bernadette had cried in public or, as her mother would have said, made a scene. Even at the funeral she had been silent, her grief so heavy she could barely stand upright but refusing to lean on Paddy's arm or to remain seated when the rest of the congregation stood.

In the weeks after the funeral she had wanted to die. She had once prayed to God to release her from this life, even though she knew it was a sin to want your life at an end. Hardest to bear were the sincere condolences she met with the few times she managed to leave the house. It took every ounce of will power not to shout, “Leave me alone!” at the long and pitying faces that seemed to be everywhere, pursuing her.

Jeannette had counseled patience. “Time will ease your suffering, Mary.” Paddy had sworn to do whatever she asked of him that would help console her in her pain. She didn't hear either of them. While Paddy broke down and wept in Jeannette's arms—“I am losing my wife. I don't know what to do.”—Mary Bernadette sat by the bedroom window and stared for hours on end.

And then she had discovered that she was pregnant; it had happened before William passed away. The grief intensified. The pregnancy seemed a cruel thing for God to visit upon her at this dark time. She had gone to Father Murphy in her despair.

“I can't go through this again,” she told him through the grate of the confessional, her voice as fierce and desperate as her words, her hands clenched. “I can't.”

“You have no choice, Mary Bernadette,” Father Murphy had told her. “It is God's will that you bear another child.”

Father Murphy told her that she must find consolation in her faith. He was stern in his admonitions. “This is no time for coddling,” he said. “You have a duty to the God who made you. Think of what Our Lady suffered. Surely your pain is nothing compared to hers.”

Duty. Above all, one did one's duty.

She was never entirely sure if it was for Paddy's sake that she had forced herself to rally, or if it was for the sake of the innocent child she was carrying, a child she didn't want. Or was it her strength of will that ultimately saw her through? Certainly, Father Murphy's stern counsel had helped her to accept the burden she had been given to bear. Maybe also it was dread of the shame that resulted from failing to keep up appearances. Mary Bernadette wanted the people of Oliver's Well to respect her and her family, not to whisper behind their hands. “There goes that crazy Mrs. Fitzgibbon. She fell to pieces when her baby died. They had to take the second one away from her. Her husband divorced her and moved away. She's all alone now, the poor thing.”

But burying her grief and assuming the appearance of normalcy cost Mary Bernadette. It was a slow and arduous process. She had to learn how to live with an ever present and unfathomable loneliness. She had to learn how to distance her innermost self from everyone, even her beloved husband. She had to learn how to be alone. And over the years, through sheer determination, she had succeeded in rising to the position she held now, that of family matriarch and highly regarded citizen of Oliver's Well. A person who had not been felled by loss. A person who had triumphed over death.

Mary Bernadette lifted the wooden box from the drawer, opened it with the key hidden in the pocket of a cardigan, and took out a small stack of photographs. So few pictures of William; he had died long before the days when parents documented their child's every move on video and cell phones, long before the days when parents shared their child's every landmark and accomplishment on the Internet. Here was a photo taken on the day of William's baptism; his godparents, cousins of Paddy's who had gone back to Ireland shortly after, stood next to Father Murphy. Here was the infant William on his first Christmas. Here was a photo of William's first birthday the following December, sitting in Jeannette's lap, laughing and clutching a ball. William cuddled in Mary Bernadette's arms on Easter Sunday. William and his father after mass on St. Patrick's Day.

His smile had been infectious. His cheeks had been plump and rosy. His eyes had been large and blue. No one could ever take his place. Which was why on a day a few months into her second pregnancy, with a fierce determination and without even a moment of hesitation Mary Bernadette had ruthlessly purged the house of William's things. She could no longer bear the sight of the fuzzy blue blanket and the plastic fire truck and the canvas sneakers. She couldn't stand the thought of her second child wearing his brother's clothing or playing with his brother's toys. She removed his pictures from their frames and locked them away, hiding the key. Paddy had come home from work that evening to find the crib and stroller dismantled and a stack of boxes, sealed and labeled, waiting to be picked up by a representative of Catholic Charities. He had not protested his wife's actions. Only Jeannette had voiced a concern that Mary Bernadette's decision to remove all traces of William from sight was not the best way to mourn. “I'm afraid it will make things worse for you,” she had said. “I wish you would reconsider.” Mary Bernadette had given her friend a choice. Accede to her request not to mention her dead son's name to anyone ever again or consider the relationship over. Jeannette had reluctantly agreed.

The only personal effect of William's Mary Bernadette had kept was the cross his godparents had given him at his baptism. She took it out of the box now and kissed it. And then she put everything back into the box, locked it, and put it away.

 

Later that afternoon Jeannette came by with a banana bread still warm from the oven. “I made two loaves,” she said. “Too much for just Danny and me.”

“Thank you,” Mary Bernadette said.

Jeannette gently touched the blooms in the vase. “So many years.”

“And it still seems like yesterday.”

“I'm sorry for that, Mary.”

“We all have a burden to carry.”

“Yes. And some burdens are heavier than others.”

“My mother and father taught my brother and me that it was wrong to dwell on your troubles. They often told us that we should look to God when trials came upon us and get on with the life He gave us to endure.”

Jeannette sighed. “That's all well and good as far as it goes, Mary. But I don't think that God would deny any of his children the comfort of tears.”

Self-indulgence,
Mary Bernadette thought. The time for tears had long since passed. She turned away now and cleared her throat. “I got a nice fresh chicken at the farmers' market this morning,” she said. “I thought I'd roast it for dinner. It's one of Paddy's favorites, as you know. We can have the banana bread with it.”

“Then I'll be on my way and let you get started. Good-bye, Mary.”

“Good-bye, Jeannette.”

T
he light was perfect, and Alexis had already spent a very pleasant hour taking pictures of some of the more interesting old buildings along Main Street. At the moment she was standing in front of a lovely old building, on the ground floor of which a storefront bore a sign that read T
HE
S
HELBY
G
ALLERY
. (She had seen the sign before, of course, but had never ventured inside.) Alexis raised her camera to her eye and adjusted the focus. Suddenly the door opened and a man emerged from the gallery. Alexis lowered the camera.

“Hi,” he said, coming forward and extending a hand. “I don't think we've met. I'm Morgan Shelby. This is my gallery. And my building, in fact.”

“I'm Alexis,” she replied, shaking his hand. “I'm sorry. Do you object to my taking a picture? It's just for me, not publication.”

“Not at all. It's a beautiful bit of midnineteenth-century architecture, isn't it? I live on the top floor. I've got a great view of nothing. No ugly factories or high-rise apartment buildings. It's one good reason to live here and not in some suburban development.”

Alexis took quick stock of Morgan Shelby. He was not terribly tall, certainly shorter than PJ, and slender, with longish dark blond hair tucked behind his ears. His eyes were brown. He was dressed in dark blue jeans and a white button-down shirt, open at the collar with the sleeves rolled halfway to his elbows.
He's very nice looking,
Alexis thought.

“So, did you grow up in Oliver's Well?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” Morgan said. “I came here about five years ago from Baltimore, partly to get away from my Important Old Maryland Family. I love them, it's just that . . . well, let's leave it at that. Anyway, it was a risk, opening a gallery at the tender age of thirty, and on borrowed money. But I had—I still have—a real love of what I do, and to be honest, I've had a lot of luck.”

Alexis smiled. “So you're here to stay.”

“As long as people keep wanting to buy up the past. So, what brings you to town?”

“I'm married to PJ Fitzgibbon. You know, of Fitzgibbon Landscaping.”

“Of course. They do fantastic work. A mom-and-pop organization, isn't it?”

“Yes. PJ's grandparents own it, though someday PJ will inherit the business. He's running it now.”

Morgan smiled. “All in the family.”

That was putting it mildly, Alexis thought. “Kind of, yes,” she said. “You weren't at Norma Campbell's party for Wynston Meadows, were you?”

“No. I was invited—all the shop owners were—but I have an aversion to anything even remotely political. Inevitably, at a shindig like that, someone is going to ask your opinion on a town matter and you'll be in trouble no matter what you say, even ‘I have no opinion at all.' Well, especially if you say that.”

“No one asked me my opinion about anything to do with Oliver's Well,” Alexis admitted. “No one asked me anything at all, come to think of it. Oh, except, how happy was I to be working for Fitzgibbon Landscaping.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“Oh, I said that I was very happy. That was the expected answer.”

“Was it the honest answer?” Morgan asked.

“Oh, yes, of course,” she said quickly.

Morgan pointed to her camera. “Is that a Nikon D90?”

“Yes, it is. You know cameras?”

“A little. I'm always taking photos of interesting items I find in my travels—old furniture, artwork, that sort of thing. They give me a reference for research and that helps me decide whether I want to offer for the pieces.”

“Do you travel a lot hunting out things for the gallery?” Alexis asked. She thought it sounded like fun, poking through people's attics for old lace dresses, or sifting through a collector's accumulation of antique salt and pepper shakers.

“A fair amount,” Morgan said. “At the moment I'm pretty much fully stocked, so I really should sell some big items before I go out and spend more money.”

“Oh,” Alexis said. “Right.”

“You know,” Morgan said now, “there's a guy over in Westminster who restores and sells old cameras and equipment. His name is Bud Humphries, and his shop is called Shutterbug. Mention my name if you go in,” Morgan said. “I can't promise he'll give you a discount, but he'll definitely give you his full attention.”

“Thanks,” Alexis said. “I appreciate the lead.”

“No problem. Well, I should get back inside. There's always an armoire to polish.”

Alexis laughed. “I guess I should get going, too. It was nice meeting you.”

Morgan nodded. “I'm sure I'll see you around town.”

He went back inside his shop and Alexis continued on along Main Street.
That was fun,
she thought.
What a nice guy
.