Her Name Is Rose (22 page)

He'd met Hilary at a house party of a mutual friend, Scott, somewhere off Harvard Square. Scott played electric guitar and Rowan played tenor sax in a jazz ensemble. Scott and Hilary were in their senior year at college in Boston and Rowan was completing his MLA nearby in Cambridge.

She was tall with shoulder-length brown hair. She wore a sheepskin jacket that cold night, and a blue-jean skirt with frayed edges she'd fashioned herself, and lace-up boots with black tights. She'd come to the party on her own because Scott told her there was this guy he
really
wanted her to meet. She moved on the edge of the party with a kind of confidence that showed she was comfortable in herself, and even proud, and she spoke with Scott without needing to look around the room for the person he'd proposed for her to meet. When Scott finally brought them together he'd said, “You two have a destiny. I can feel it.”

Rowan had found out much about Hilary that first night. She came from the same part of New York State. It was this that got them talking so easily. They talked about places they visited in Westchester and found they had a mutual partiality for the old Bedford Village Playhouse and an Italian restaurant called Nino's. They agreed right then and there that the next time they were both “home” they'd catch a film and dinner. Maybe Scott was right. Maybe they had a destiny.

Hilary lived in Brighton in a studio apartment. She cycled everywhere, she'd said. And she loved Bonnie Raitt and Bruce Springsteen and an Irish singer called Elvis Costello. Half a dozen silver bracelets on her arm made a kind of music, like cymbals proclaiming the arrival of royalty, Rowan had mused, every time she moved. He liked that she wore mismatched earrings, and liked the color green, and Irish poetry, and that she hoped to do a master's degree in Ireland at Trinity College in September. Rowan told her about Burdy and his own Irish connection.

He remembered that in the dark, crowded room of the kitchen when someone had dimmed the lights he'd kissed her suddenly and said he wanted to take her back to his place. If Rowan closed his eyes, even now, there she was, waving good-bye to him as she went down into the station at Harvard Square to catch the T back to Brighton. She hadn't accepted his invitation to spend that first night together.

*   *   *

Now, twenty years later, midmorning, Rowan was driving down the Saw Mill River Parkway. Louise had checked the phonebook—the Barretts still lived at 57 Cedar Lane—twenty minutes away. Mother and brother had wanted to go with him.

“Moral support, brother?”

“Pierce, thanks,” said Rowan. “I need to do this on my own, though.”

A heat wave was folding in over the whole of the northeastern coast, from the Jersey Shore to Boston, but Rowan turned off the air-conditioning and drove with the windows down. He needed a bit of reality. It was Sunday morning and traffic was light. He'd spent many hours up and down this highway traveling by car from the city to visit Burdy and his mother. Or he'd take the train that snaked along the river, a tributary of the Hudson that Burdy had once told him was known by the Native Americans as
Nepperhan
, meaning “rapid little stream.” He sometimes felt he belonged more to the landscape than to anything, to the richness of its place names and its flora and fauna.

Hilary had felt the same, and during one of their times together they'd taken a drive on the Taconic State Parkway up through the Hudson Valley to Chatham to spend the night in a country inn. He remembered telling her that the Taconic was as perfect an example of what was meant by a
park
way as you could hope to find. A magnificent blend of highway engineering and landscape architecture. She'd let him ramble on about the designer, whom Rowan had studied at Harvard. “That's the guy that designed the Unisphere,” he'd said. “You know the thing … the giant globe? You pass it on the way into Queens if you're going to Long Island?”

“I know it. It's pretty—”

“Over seven hundred thousand pounds of pure steel. Biggest world on earth.”

Rowan cringed now, recalling how he'd just been trying to boast and hear himself talk. He remembered the weekend because it was the end of September, the autumn leaves were turning. Hilary was leaving for Ireland.

He got off the parkway at Exit 32 and onto Route 120 and drove down into Chappaqua. From memory he knew the house was somewhere near, but made two wrong turns before he found Cedar Lane. He parked the car alongside the curb in front of the mailbox of number 57. A decal of ducks flew across the aluminum box. It was then that Rowan recalled Jack Barrett had been editor-in-chief of
Field & Stream
. An American flag the size of a large beach towel angled out under a black porch of the white, shingled house. On the seat beside him lay the music for his tribute to Burdy.

And grace will lead me home.

He blew a sigh and got out of the car.

The Barrett house was a Colonial Revival with black shutters sitting on a well-manicured front lawn with a two-car garage on an acre of land. To the left, an old red maple rose from the center of a bed of pachysandra. To the right, an old-fashioned rose bed. Simple and elegant and impressive. The front inner door was open and he could see into a foyer through a screen door. A mound of shoes—a pair each of loafers, boots, and running shoes—were piled inside to the left at the base of a stairway.

Rowan knocked on the wooden frame and waited.

A man accompanied by a black Labrador came to the door. He was wearing a Yankees baseball cap and khaki shorts and a black T-shirt. “Who have we here, Bullet?” the man said, looking down to the dog and scratching its head. “Hey, fella?” He turned back to Rowan. “Friend or foe?” He didn't open the screen door.

“Hello, Mr. Barrett.”

As Mr. Barrett studied the stranger standing at his front door, his face transitioned from friendly curiosity to vexation. It only took a few seconds. “What do you want?” Bullet's back stiffened and his tail heightened as he responded to the tone of his owner's voice.

“It's been a long time—” Rowan said.

“Seventeen years and a few months. And not long enough.”

“I have to speak with you … please.”

“Whatever it is, I'm not interested.” Bullet's mouth curled and he growled. Jack Barrett was about the same age as Rowan's father, late sixties. He stood squarely in the doorway.

“It's important.”

“Jack? Jack? What is it?” A tall woman with graying hair tied up in an elegant bun appeared behind Jack. Marjorie Barrett was carrying small pruning scissors and wore one gardening glove.

“Please, Mrs. Barrett, Jack … I have to know if.… Did Hilary…?”

“Blake!” Jack Barrett raised his voice. “You—”

“Jack,” Mrs. Barrett said gently, putting her hand on his arm. “Don't. Please.” She stepped in front of him. “I'm sorry, Rowan. It's been a long time.” Mrs. Barrett went to open the screen door. “I know why you're here.”

“Is it true? Did Hilary? Did she? Did she have a baby?” The words lurched up from Rowan's gut.

Mr. Barrett stayed his wife's hand on the door handle and stared at Rowan a moment, his lips quivering, and then he stomped off, leaving his wife with her head down, staring at the floor, then she, too, turned and walked deep into her home.

If there had been a chair or bench Rowan would have collapsed onto it. Instead his head sunk and he clasped his hands over his head. His shoulders heaved up and down and he sobbed. The energy rising in him, like a tornado, was so intense he had to move so as not to fall. He went around in a small circle on the graveled path to regain his balance.

Inside the house Bullet was barking.

Because he had to do something, because his world was spinning out of control, Rowan grabbed a fistful of gravel and threw it across the lawn. Pathetic. He bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath, looking down at the circle of pachysandra around the red maple. He wanted to yank it out.

Then the front door of the house opened. Mrs. Barrett came toward Rowan with slow steps. In her brown eyes he saw Hilary. He backed away as she advanced.

“I'm sorry,” he said and let go of the last of the sharp gravel in his hand.

She extended her hand to him. “I hoped one day you would come. I didn't know how or why or when. But I'd hoped you would because I wanted you to know. The birth of a child is a miracle. No matter what. It's a sign that the world goes on, with or without us, it goes on. And you are a part of that.” She put her hand on the side of his face and left it there a moment.

Rowan pulled awkwardly on the flagged path. “Why didn't she tell me? Why didn't you tell me?”

“It was too late. There was nothing you, or we, could have done by the time we learned about the baby. It's the way Hilary wanted it. I'm so sorry. It was a mistake … not to tell you.” Marjorie's eyes teared as she watched him take this in, watched as his thoughts crisscrossed his face, reconstructing the past as if he were adding and subtracting all the permutations and reconciling the past with the present.

“No. I'm sorry. The mistake was mine. I should never have broken it off. Fact is, Mrs. Barrett, there hasn't been anyone like Hilary in my life … since.”

“Here,” she said. “We found this after … after … here…” The words choked her throat. She handed Rowan a neatly folded piece of notepaper. It was inside a sealed plastic bag. “Hilary meant for you to have this. It tells you everything.”

 

Thirteen

When Pierce arrived at the White Horse Tavern in Chappaqua it was empty except for Rowan. He was sitting near the front window, staring at the piece of paper in his hands. He folded it when his brother approached. Pierce came over quickly, sat down opposite. They stayed like that a few moments, Pierce watching Rowan, and Rowan watching three small boys sitting on a bench across the street. They were horsing around and laughing.

“What's happened?” Pierce said.

The bartender, a young woman in shorts and a polo shirt, came to the table.

“I'll have another,” Rowan said. And to his brother, “You want something?”

His brother looked at Rowan's empty glass, then to the bartender, and said, “No. No, thanks. I'm fine. Maybe water.” Then to Rowan, he said, “Buddy? It's early for that. Let's wait till we're back at Mother's.” The woman shrugged and went away.

Rowan didn't get angry. He might have, but he didn't. Something was happening to him. He wasn't sure what. He said, “Allow me to quote the proverbial words of the great Irishman Edmund Burke,” he said, “I may be turning over a new leaf.”

“What?”

“It's a Coke. I'm drinking Coke.”

“Good. That's good.” Pierce paused. “Sorry.” And then, as if unable to remain patient any longer, Pierce shifted in his chair and made to get up. Half sitting, half standing, he said, somewhat exasperated, “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Yes. Sit down.”

“Will
I
need a drink for this?”

The bartender laid the Coke in front of Rowan and raised her eyes. When she was out of earshot, Pierce said, “Okay, tell me.”

Rowan recounted the entire incident. The barking dog, Jack Barrett, the red maple, the American flag, Marjorie Barrett, and the letter. He showed the letter, but didn't give it to him. “Hilary had written this but she never sent it. Her parents found it among her things.”

“Oh, Jesus. It's addressed to you.”

Rowan looked again out the window where a woman, about the age of their mother, was tying the shoes of one of the little boys. “Yes, it's addressed to me.”

After a time he turned back. “She
did
have a baby. A girl.”

Pierce might have prepared for something like this, but the look on his face showed his shock and his hand rose instinctively to cover his brother's outstretched hand.

“Jack blames me for Hilary's death.”

“So they kept it from you? And…” Pierce paused briefly. “I'm so sorry, Ro. But it's…” He looked at Rowan. “It's kind of…” He didn't say more but surveyed his brother's face to calculate how he was taking this. Rowan was oddly calm. There was a sense of determination about him that hadn't surfaced for a long time. He'd spent too many years ignoring the insidious way alcohol had crept, like a slowly growing fungus, into his life. He had fooled himself, but all the time there was a part of him that understood if only he could … if only he could kill the rot, his life would be better.

“I'm going to Ireland.”

*   *   *

The next afternoon, Pierce drove Rowan to JFK for an evening flight to Dublin. Rowan had phoned his office to say he was taking a week's vacation. It was last minute but he'd be contactable by cell phone.

“I wish I could go with you. Here,” Pierce said. “Mother gave me this to give to you. Put it in your suitcase.”

“What is it?”

“Don't ask.” Pierce rolled his eyes. “Just scatter them somewhere.”

Rowan registered with a similar rolling-eyed expression. He understood. Burdy's ashes.

The only tickets left to Dublin that night were in business, but Rowan didn't want to wait a couple of days for a cheaper fare. When he'd settled in and was offered complimentary champagne, he chose orange juice instead. One day at a time, he thought.

Rowan had never been to Ireland. Burdy had always meant to take him on a golf trip and to show him the statue in St. Stephen's Green of his great-great-great-grand uncle, the Irish patriot, Robert Emmet. But it never happened. Why was that? Rowan had been too busy. That's why. It was his own fault. Another lost opportunity. The road to regret is paved with inaction. When he stopped long enough to think about it his regrets were many. After it had ended with Hilary there had been other women but nothing amounted to anything lasting or meaningful. He couldn't say why, really. He regretted that he hadn't tried harder. He regretted, too, that he hadn't spent enough time with his mother. For too long all his regrets had been absolved by alcohol.