The Charm Bracelet(22)

When Mary made it to her aunt and uncle’s tiny home in Grand Rapids, Michigan—exhausted from her many months of travel to join her family—it had just begun to snow.

“It’s only November,” Mary said.

“Welcome to Michigan,” her aunt Sarah laughed, inviting her inside, where a tiny bedroom in the back of the house had been readied, keepsakes from Ireland placed around the room, and helped her unpack.

Mary thought of the day she found her ticket to America nestled under an egg, and of how the snow had stuck to her father’s dark hair, making him look angelic. The memories, coupled with excitement and exhaustion, caused tears to flow.

“Are you feeling ill, Mary?” Sarah asked.

“No,” she said, trying to explain her feelings. “I’m feeling … blessed by family.”

Sarah held her close as they sat on her new bed, and Mary told her of her travels to America, her trip here, and her charm.

“It’s ready,” her uncle Sean said, interrupting the two.

“We have something to show you now, too,” her aunt said, taking Mary’s hand and leading her to the living room.

Mary inhaled sharply. Two chairs in front of a large picture window had been cleared, and Mary’s Singer now sat there, framed by a hillside of snow-kissed pines. A fireplace burned nearby.

“This is where you will work,” Sarah said. “You need a spot as inspiring as your work.”

“Until you meet a husband and have a family of your own, that is,” Mary’s uncle laughed.

Mary sewed in that spot—through the dark days of winter that only the lake-effect snow could brighten, the spring bloom of daffodils so thick they made the hillside look as if it had been spun in gold, and the stunning summer when it remained light until nearly midnight—creating wedding dresses and business suits, quilts and coats. She sold them in shops around town, and before long many of the town’s wealthy families hired her to do work just for them. Mary enjoyed the quiet of Michigan, and she saved money, sending it back to her parents, until one summer night she noticed that the dinner table was set for four.

Before Mary could ask why, a man resembling a wolf—an animal which Mary often observed through the window as she sewed—rumbled into the house. Mary screamed, and the man retreated.

“That’s no way to greet our guest, Mary,” her uncle laughed. “This is Web Falloran.”

Wilbur “Web” Falloran owned a broad, burly body, and a face covered with an unkempt beard. When Mary screamed, the man curled his arms into his big chest as if he were going to have to engage in battle.

“I’m so sorry,” Mary apologized. “You startled me.”

“Web gets that a lot.” Sean laughed. “He’s a lumberman, Mary, from Scoops, Michigan, near the Upper Peninsula. He brings wood down to Grand Rapids for the furniture makers. And he’s a fellow Irishman!”

Over a dinner of shepherd’s pie and colcannon, Mary discovered the man she’d thought was a wolf was gentler than a pup. He spoke with a quiet rumble, almost like distant thunder, and he complimented Mary on her sewing and her bravery in coming to America. When dinner was over, he asked Mary’s aunt and uncle if he could take Mary for a walk amongst the pines.

“Tell me about the charm on your bracelet,” he asked as they walked.

Mary smiled, stopped suddenly under the boughs of an ancient pine, and ducked her head, her hair falling toward the green grass of the hillside.

It was a perfect Michigan summer night, warm and filled with the sound of peepers. Mary shut her eyes and inhaled deeply. The smell of nearby Lake Michigan filled the air. For a moment, Mary thought she was back in Ireland.

“You want to know about this charm?” she asked.

It seemed an odd question for a man to ask, much less a woodsman.

But Web only nodded his head and looked deeply into her eyes. “Yes,” he said. “It must mean a lot to you.”

So Mary told him, and he smiled a big smile underneath that bushy beard, his dark eyes twinkling in the last hints of day. “There is nothing more sacred than sewing,” he said. “It is like the art of a lumberman. Both provide shelter for a family. Both require hard labor and long hours. Both, in the end, are works of art.”

Two weeks later, Web returned for dinner, and they again went for a walk. Under the same pine boughs, Web stopped and pulled a small box out of his pocket.

“Open it!” he said.

Mary lifted the lid, and sitting atop a little velvet throne, was a charm of a four-leaf clover. “Luck of the Irish,” he smiled. “It was my mom’s. She sent it to me years ago, after I came to America. She said this charm is for luck in love and life.”

He hesitated. “I think I have finally found luck in love and life.”

Web softly pulled Mary’s wrist into the summer air and added the charm next to the sewing machine.

And then with only the pines and the peepers as witnesses, Web leaned in and kissed Mary’s lips. For a big man, the kiss was as tender and gentle as a soft rain. Mary collapsed into his arms. When Mary turned to walk home, she saw the curtain in the picture window move. Her aunt and uncle had been secretly watching.

Three months later, Mary was married. They moved into a little log cabin Web had built for his bride on a little lake—Lost Land Lake—in the woods outside of Scoops, Michigan.