Between Here and the Horizon(33)
I hope by then I can say I’ve lived a life worth writing about. I hope by then Sully and I are married, and we’ve had kids of our own. I hope we’ve traveled the world. Seen everything there is to see. I hope we’ve come back to the island and built a new life for ourselves here, and I can ride every day and Sully can make things in his workshop. That would make me happy. That would make me very happy indeed.
M
M for Magda. I’d been mistaken; I’d thought the journal Ronan left for me to read was his, but it wasn’t. It was his wife’s, and the very first entry on the very first page confirmed all too clearly what Rose had told me: Magda had started out in love with Sully. I could have guessed the problem between Ronan and his brother had stemmed from a woman somehow, but I’d had no idea it would be Ronan’s dead wife. What strife that must have caused. And how? Magda was sixteen when she wrote on the first page in her diary. Flicking through the occasionally brittle, occasionally damp smelling book, I skipped to the very last entry in the journal, only three quarters of the way through, and noted the date.
April last year. The handwriting had changed from girly, loopy cursive to a more elegant, sprawling text over the years, but the lettering was still unmistakably from the same hand. I avoided the words written onto the paper, not wanting to read them yet. For some reason it felt like skipping to the end of a novel and ruining the story for myself, though in this instance I already knew what happened at the end. Magda was dead, and now so was Ronan. Sully was the last man standing.
After Rose had left, I’d ducked into the office and grabbed the book before I’d had a chance to change my mind. I needed some more background history, and low and behold it looked like I was going to get it in spades. There had to be over a hundred entries in Magda’s journal. Some of the pages were rigid and crackled as they were turned. Others were covered with photos. Some bore event tickets, plane tickets…stubs to movies. Closer to the end of the book, I caught sight of a sonogram tacked to a page, and I had to stop myself from investigating closer to see if it was Connor or Amie Magda had commemorated in her book.
Amie sat with me the entire afternoon, dipping in and out of sleep, crying sporadically in quiet, heartbroken jags that made me ache inside for her. Connor remained in his room, rainbow hat jammed onto his head, not moving, not saying a word. He’d lashed out and tried to kick me when I tried to pick him up and take him into my arms, growling fiercely, and so I’d left him alone in the silence of his room, hoping I was doing the right thing.
The rain arrived around four, hammering at the windows, rattling them in their frames, and wind tore at the house, howling through the brickwork in the old pantry, the only part of the house that didn’t look like it had been renovated, causing the kitchen door to slam closed behind me every time I went in there to get juice or cookies for Amie.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Magda’s journal. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sully’s appearance earlier, either, or the harsh way that he’d spoken. He’d been stark and unwelcoming, but he’d also been afraid, too—when he heard Amie calling out for her father, he’d looked so lost that the transformation had startled me. I needed to know why he’d taken the time to come to the house not once but twice in order to tell me I’d be wasting my time if I tried to fulfill Ronan’s wishes. The mystery of it all was killing me.
I flicked through the journal, letting it fall open midway through—a page full of photos. I only knew the images were of Sully because Magda had written underneath each one with a title, time and date.
Sully, Fort Benning, April 2003.
Sully, Times Square, December 2003. Four days until deployment.
Sully, Kabul, May 2004.
Sully, with Daniels and Rogers, Kabul, January 2005.
Underneath this entry, a faded, small photograph was taped to the paper: Sully, in full military uniform, sun blazing, a white hot blister in the background, two tall black guys also in uniform with their arms slung over his shoulders. All three of the men were smiling, teeth showing, sweat on their brows, but there was something a little off about the picture. The smiles seemed edgy, like they’d been painted on. The men stood tall and stiff, as though ready to drop the pretense of happiness at the first sign of trouble in order to pick up the rifles at their feet and start fighting.
None of them looked like they wanted to be there at all.
******
I didn’t see Sully again for a month. Four weeks passed by, and not a peep. Perhaps this wouldn’t have been so strange if the island weren’t so small, and if everyone didn’t keep saying, oh how funny. You just missed Sully, to me. It was like he’d tagged me with a GPS tracker somehow, knew my exact location at all times, and was determined to avoid me no matter the cost.
CPS checked in with me, sent Sheryl back to the island to make sure I wasn’t neglecting the children (which I wasn’t), and they signed off on them staying with me until next spring. Rose’s presence was an immeasurable help. I was using some of the allowance Ronan had set aside for me to pay Dr. Fielding for Skype sessions with Connor and Amie. His time with Amie appeared to be helping her a lot, but Connor was proving harder to reach. He often sat in front of the computer screen and refused to speak at all when Fielding asked him questions. If he did speak, then he shouted, screamed and swore until Fielding declared the session counter productive and shut things down. Still, I hoped for a breakthrough. And soon. Really, really soon. My last nerve was frayed down to the quick, but more importantly I felt like I was failing Connor and Ronan at the same time, and that didn’t sit well with me at all.