The Parting Gift(10)

“Oh, it’s best if ye don’t know. Feelin’ better, lad?”

Blaine thought about the question for a moment. A weak smile spread across his lips. “A bit. My stomach feels a lot better. Thank you.”

“Aye, lad.” The old Irish man eyed him sympathetically. He opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to change his mind again. Instead he took the glass from Blaine’s hand, filled it with water from the pitcher on the bureau and returned it to him.

As the numbness from the rest of his body slowly dissipated, Blaine began to notice another violent throbbing in his right cheekbone just below the eye. He reached up tenderly to feel out the situation and found the area around his eye to be sensitive to the touch.

“Ah, yes. A fine shiner. Ye’ll want a raw steak for that, no doubt.” Old Mr. Hanigan gestured toward Blaine’s face. “Mrs. Callahan is worried about ye, lad.”

Blaine lay back against his pillow. “Is she?”

“Aye. And the lads think ye got bad news in yer telegram yesterday.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think whatever ‘twas, stirred up an old fury ye thought was dead and buried.”

The young man nodded with downcast eyes. “I guess it was just sleeping.” He reached into the pocket of his pants which hung over the headboard and retrieved the crumpled telegram. Tears threatened to spill over as he turned the telegram over and over in his hands for a moment, smoothing the creases.

Hesitantly, he offered the paper to the old man who sat on the edge of his bed. He took it reluctantly, scrutinizing Blaine's face as he did so. Turning to the telegram, Mr. Hanigan adjusted his glasses and read the words, moving his lips slightly as he scoured the page.

He folded the paper and returned it to Blaine. “Yer father. I’m sorry, lad.”

“My father.”

Mr. Hanigan seemed to be reading him like an open book, and Blaine couldn’t hold his gaze. Instead he hung his head in defeat and sighed.

“I left my father when I was sixteen, you know. I haven’t seen him since. We fought. He didn’t seem to care about what I was going through – ever. When my mother died, she wasn’t even cold in her grave yet, and he forgot all about her. He went to work the next day. Back to the Ford plant – the only thing that ever mattered to him… well, that and whether or not I was late for school.

“He never talked about her again. Never looked at a picture of her. Never remembered for a single moment anything about her. Her smile, her laugh. I was eleven, you know. I can still hear her laughing sometimes, and when I close my eyes, I can pull up a memory of her smile as clear as day.

“I was eleven, and I can remember… He couldn’t have loved her. And I know he never loved me. He left me floundering in my own grief. I had to figure it out on my own. I had to figure everything out on my own.

“And when I turned sixteen, I did figure it out. So I left him there to wallow in his arrogance.

“The war was on, but America wasn’t in it yet. My buddy, George – a great guy if ever there was one – and me, we found us a fella to make us up some official looking papers that said we were of age, and we crossed the border into Canada. They were taking anybody, so we joined up with the air force.

“They taught us to fly and shipped us to Europe. George got shot down over Belgium. He was a good guy.

“I lived. Well, obviously. But I think, maybe I wanted to die. They decorated me, you know. For what happened over there. But I never went back home. I didn’t want to go back. I left that part of my life behind me, and it’s like he died back then. My father. He died the day we buried my mother.”

Mr. Hanigan listened silently with his arms crossed.

Blaine fell silent and closed his eyes. Mr. Hanigan stroked his chin between his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully.

“I see.”

They sat in silence for a moment, then Mr. Hanigan cleared his throat. “May I tell you a story, lad?”

Blaine said nothing, but he looked at the old man expectantly.

“I had a son, ye know. Peter, he was. A bright lad. A lad with ambitions. He moved out west in search of opportunity. He wrote me often, begging me to follow him. I didn’t want to leave Boston, so I refused.” Tears streaked the man’s aged face. “He died, ye know. Caught a fever long ago and died. And there’s not a day, an hour, even a moment, I don’t regret refusin’ him. I didn’t get to say goodbye.” He met Blaine’s gaze directly, his bright blue eyes burning right into the young man’s soul. “I won’t pretend to know what yer goin’ through, lad, but I can tell ye true – regret is a terrible way to live.”





Chapter Four





Mara woke the next day with a crick in her neck, thanks to the odd position she had fallen asleep in. She had been up half the night reading, and the other half checking on David. His coughing fits were getting worse. Yet all she could do was make him comfortable until the end. Medicines and tonics only took away the symptoms and some of the pain, but the cancer was spreading fast. His health was declining with each leaf that fell to the ground from the oak in the front yard. Mara hoped he would last through Christmas. The doctors had given him six months. He was on month two, but when she had first arrived David had still been able to walk. Now he struggled to take short trips from one room to the next before needing to rest again. He was going downhill faster than she thought he would, and six months seemed more like a pipe dream. It broke her heart.