The Other Side of the World (32 page)

“And here on earth,” Seana said, “there's the blessed Irish trinity, of course: shame, guilt, and humiliation.”

“I've read your two books, you know,” Caitlin said, “so little you say will shock me. And I've also read several books by your beloved Graham Greene, and what I take away from them is that straying from the fold can itself be the surest expression of faith, and that our Lord, in his abundant mercy, often pays more attention to His sinners than He does, say, to our Ladies of Sodality.”

Seana covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

“Have your fun,” Caitlin said. “But please try not to laugh
at
us. If we mind our manners, we can get through most things. And…” She cocked her head to the side, pointed to the ceiling “…and yes, she's moving about, so I'll clean her up and bring her down, and then we can show you the surprise we prepared.”

“What surprise?”

“In the event you came for a visit, which we've been counting on, we've kept it in readiness. There's not a day goes by, mind you, we don't think of you and remember you in our prayers.”

Caitlin kissed me on the forehead. “And you too, dear child,” she said. “We won't soon forget you and your dear father.”

 

Caitlin and their mother were the same height, had the same short, cropped white hair, the same large hazel eyes. They stood at the entrance to the living room.

“Seana has come to visit us,” Caitlin said.

Their mother spoke to Seana: “Why I once had a daughter named Seana,” she said. “Did you know her?”

“I'm Seana,” Seana said. “I'm your daughter.”

“Well, isn't that good news,” their mother said. “And you
look
quite wonderful, I must say, though you'll have to forgive my not recognizing you. My mind isn't quite what it was once upon a time.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Seana said.

“Well, these things happen, don't they, and who can know why.”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Seana said.

“Oh that He does,” their mother said. “Why just look at me, if you want proof!” She turned to me. “And who are you, young man?” She touched my cheek with her fingertips. “Why you've as beautiful and kind a face as Our Saviour Himself must have had.”

I glanced at Seana, thought of saying what I imagined she was thinking: that I was a Jewish boy the way He was, and only three years older than He'd been when He died.

“I'm Charlie Eisner, a friend of Seana's,” I said. “My father was Seana's teacher—her mentor.”

“Meant what?” Seana's mother said. She turned to Seana and, suddenly alarmed, took a step back.

“And who are
you
, young lady, and when did
you
get here?” she asked.

“I'm Seana,” Seana said again. “I'm your daughter. I'm Seana Shulamith McGee O'Sullivan.”

“Ah, then you've come home at last,” her mother said, after which, with great gentleness, she probed Seana's face with her fingers the way she'd probed mine. “How I missed you, and how I do love you. You were always the best and the most beautiful. You made my heart glad with happiness, didn't you?”

“Did I?”

“And with such a lovely name—except for McGee and O'Sullivan, of course.” She spoke to me: “The McGees were cousins on my husband's side, and they were a sorry lot, you just ask anyone. And about O'Sullivan, who abandoned me and mine, the less said the better. But Shulamith! What a splendid
name! So tell me, please, if you would—who gave you such a beautiful name, dear, for it surely wasn't me.”

“I gave it to myself,” Seana said. “It's Hebrew—from Solomon, for wisdom, and from ‘shalom,' for peace.”

“And from Salome,” Caitlin said. “Let us not forget Salome.”

“From Salome,” Seana said.

“For
beauty
!” their mother exclaimed. “Of course. I can see that, for you
are
beautiful, with or without your veils, and isn't our life but a veil of tears, after all?”

“But that's not the same veil…” Seana began.

“I know
that
,” her mother said, waving away her words. “Don't confuse me for one of those demented nursing home ladies, young woman. I was just being clever, but I'll never leave our home, do you hear? No matter what you say, you can't drive me out and set me on a slab of ice with a bag of food…”

“You'll always live here, Mum,” Caitlin said. “We've made a vow—
all
your daughters have—isn't that so, Seana.”

Seana said nothing.

“Oh I can be quite loveable and clever, as you've just seen, even without my memory,” their mother said, and she sat down next to Seana. “And I'm glad of your visit.”

“You smell like lilacs,” Seana said. “The way you did when I was a girl.”

“Talcum powder,” her mother said. “Oh yes. Talcum powder—‘an Irish shower' we call it. And would you know what young boys call an Irish priest?”

“I don't,” Seana said. “What do young boys call an Irish priest?”

“A pain in the ass,” her mother said. “Which is the kind of joke
he
would have made if were he still with us, and you know who I mean.”

She folded her hands in her lap, and closed her eyes.

“Perhaps it's time for another nap,” Caitlin said, “and afterwards we can show Seana the surprise we prepared for her.”

Their mother opened her eyes, and sat up straight. “No nap while my daughter is with me,” she said. “That would be rude. It's quite wonderful to have her here with us, you know, for there were times I feared I might die without ever seeing her again.”

“Did you really?” Seana asked.

“I wouldn't lie to you, my child,” her mother said. “Because, and no offense to your sisters, I did love you most of all. You were the child of my old age—the miracle and gift the Lord had prepared for me. You made me laugh again after he was gone, and I've read your books, the two of them, but you used your real name, though my own mother, bless her heart, said that if you're going to make a fool of yourself, you should do it out of town. So now, please, tell me all about yourself and about what you've been up to with this handsome, young man.”

Seana's mother grinned broadly. Then her eyes closed again, and a moment later she was fast asleep.

“Who
is
this woman?” Seana asked Caitlin.

“It's one of the unforeseen benefits I mentioned,” Caitlin said. “With her memory coming and going—going mostly—she's become all sweetness and light—the happy little girl she must have been before she married him, I've come to think, and before we all came along.”

Caitlin said that after their mother woke, she would telephone their sisters, and that they were sure to come by and to bring their children—Seana's nieces and nephews—with them. Seana asked how they all were, and Caitlin talked about them and what they were up to: Keira, with three teenage girls at Sacred Heart, and two boys in middle school at Saint Francis. Built like little brick shithouses the boys were, Caitlin said, and Keira was selling real estate in Bay Ridge, and she was still married to Bill, though only God knew why, the way he played around with the college girls on his beat down by Brooklyn College.

And Mary, mostly on her own since her husband Mitchell went on permanent disability, was taking good care of
her
brood—two girls, two boys, and they were growing up just fine. A floor had collapsed under Mitchell during a fire in Red Hook, and he spent most of his days in bed watching television or at the local pub with his old firehouse buddies. And Peggy? Peggy was still vowing to leave her husband Joe—Joe a fireman too, and as much use, pardon her French, as a fart in a sausage factory for all the good he ever did, except to send out for pizza when Peggy had to work the night shift at Maimonides Hospital, where she was now chief nurse in pediatrics.

Her own husband, Hank, retired from the police force for six years and now working as a driver for a wealthy Park Avenue widow who dabbled in antiques, was probably the best of the lot, she said, and
their
four children were all out of college, three of them married and with their own children, and the baby—Fiona—engaged to a fine young man who'd been a star basketball player at St. John's. The bad news, though, was that Fiona had been diagnosed with lupus, though the doctors caught it early and believed it would prove manageable, and her young man—John—was standing by her. The wedding was set for June.

“The Lord does try us sometimes,” Caitlin said, “and mostly we prove worthy of His love, and the good news is that we have one another, so we can help out when need be and—what saves the day—complain to each other on a regular basis. For isn't complaining what that man whose name will not be spoken told us it was—a great indoor sport at which the Irish excel?”

Seana smiled. “I'll look forward to complaining with you,” she said.

“And what would
you
have to complain about?” Caitlin said. “You with no husband, no children, all the money in the world, men fainting at the sight of you, and this handsome, young friend doting on you.”

Seana flinched visibly, but said nothing.

Their mother stirred. “Will you be calling the others now?” she asked.

“Soon,” Caitlin said.

“Is it time for the surprise?”

“It's time.”

“Then take my hand, please,” their mother said to Seana.

Seana took her mother's hand, and we walked up the stairs, Caitlin going ahead of us. We waited at the second floor landing while Caitlin went into a room at the end of the hallway. She came out a few seconds later, motioned for us to join her.

We entered a small, narrow room. To one side was a bed and dresser, and to the other side was a two-drawer desk and a small three-shelf bookcase.

“This was once my daughter's room,” their mother said.

Straight ahead, between two windows, the shades drawn, was a table, and on the table between two lit candles, there was a framed picture of a girl in a white dress—Seana's communion picture, I assumed—and next to it, propped up on display stands, copies of
Triangle
and
Plain Jane
.

Caitlin stood to one side of the table, hands clasped as if in prayer. Seana's mother touched each of the novels, then smiled at us.

“My daughter wrote these books,” she said brightly. “She's quite the famous writer. Do you know her?”

“
I'm
your daughter,” Seana said. “
I'm
Seana O'Sullivan.”

“What excellent news!” Seana's mother said. “And how wonderful to know that you're still alive.”

Caitlin put a hand on her mother's arm, but her mother pushed it away angrily, leaned on the table. “It's terrible when your memory begins to go,” she said. “It's really quite terrible.”

 

I was awake before the sun rose—I'd slept in the room that had been Keira and Mary's—and I went into Seana's room, where she was fast asleep, snoring lightly, her arms wrapped around a
pillow. I lifted the shade on one of the windows, looked out at the alleyway that ran behind the house. Not far beyond the garbage cans and the litter, perhaps a five or six minute walk along Rogers Avenue, I knew, on Martense Street, was the house in which my father had grown up, and though the rooms in which he ate, slept, and studied would probably be there for a while to come, it occurred to me that the memories he had of those rooms, and of all he'd done and thought and dreamt in them, were now gone forever.

I watched a large brown and white spotted dog burrow into a pile of garbage, and come out with a piece of brown paper. One paw on the paper to hold it in place, the dog licked whatever grease or crumbs were on it, and then moved off. I thought of late fall mornings in Northampton, the leaves on the trees outside the kitchen windows mostly gone, Max at the stove, scrambling eggs for us. All through junior high and high school, despite my protests, he'd insisted on the two of us having breakfast together every morning before I left for school. When I once asked why—why was it so important, especially given that I could fix something for myself, and that he didn't have to get up (he never taught morning classes)—without looking at me, he answered by saying we were still family even when we were only two, and then asked if I wanted toast with my eggs.

I tried to let the world beyond Seana's room—the alleyway, the old wooden fence behind it, the backs of buildings behind the fence, the early morning light—have its way with me. I stared out at the stillness, wondered why I saw no cats—weren't they supposed to be scrounging around at this time of day?—and found myself wishing I could ask Max if he thought the quality of the stillness here—the quiet—was different from the quiet we'd known on mornings in Northampton.

I wasn't aware that Seana was awake and out of bed until she had her arms around me.

“Good morning, my love,” she said.

“Do you live here?” I asked.

“Literally, or figuratively?”

“Either. Both.”

“Mmmm,” she said, nuzzling my neck.

“You must have been a happy little girl before you began collecting grudges,” I said.

“Maybe,” she said. “I used to love looking out this window, though. I loved it
because
there was nothing much to see. Sometimes, in the summer, there'd be a few people out on the fire escapes, cooling off. But with nothing to see—nothing new, anyway—I could daydream—I could
imagine
things.”