The Good Left Undone(70)

McVicars heard a strange sound coming from the garden behind the house. He peered out the kitchen window and observed his mother tapping a brick in the garden wall into place with a stone, until it was even with the others. McVicars left the house unannounced and walked the streets of Glasgow until tea.

The hours between tea and supper were the longest of McVicars’s life. He felt cheated out of his own happiness, which was difficult to accept because it was his mother who had robbed him of it. He returned home with a heavy heart as night fell. He waited in his upstairs room until he heard her climb the steps to her bedroom. It was easy to avoid his mother because she did not seek his company, make his meals, or do his laundry. His childhood home was a place to lodge until his orders came through. He lit a cigarette and waited for his mother to fall asleep.

McVicars opened his bedroom door and peered out. He had done enough sneaking around in his youth; he knew how to pass the threshold of his parents’ bedroom without making a sound or leaving a shadow. He tiptoed down the stairs and went through the kitchen to the garden. He lit another cigarette, and using the match for light, he found the stone his mother had left on the ground. He tapped the bricks with the stone until he found the loose one. The process took long enough that the ash from his cigarette, dangling from his mouth, burned close to his lips. He stomped out the cigarette before lifting the brick away. He found a stack of letters in a paper bag stuffed into the small tomb.

Once he returned to his room, McVicars placed the letters from Domenica on his desk. He lay down on the bed and began to read. He began with the last letter Domenica had sent to him from Marseille. It was dated 9 July 1939.


Dear Captain McVicars,

There is really little left to write. My thoughts are in the unanswered letters. I understand, or think I might, why you have not responded. I have written something that offended you. For that, I ask your forgiveness. It is possible another woman has crossed your path that is far more suitable for you than me. I hope this is the case and you have made a good friend of her.

With best wishes,

Domenica Cabrelli


His mother had sliced open the envelopes neatly with her hairpin. He stacked the sheets of stationery neatly, like pages of a book, before sitting down at the table by the window. He pulled the lamp close to the paper and read Domenica’s letters slowly. The captain did not read them once, or even twice, but three times, to make sure he understood her intent. As he set aside the pages one by one for the last time, a lake of blue pooled on the table.

McVicars sat back, balancing on the back legs of the chair. He put his hands behind his head, looked out at the moon, and thought about the Italian girl. He understood Domenica now, having read the letters. He was ashamed that his mother had read them, not because of the content, but because he would have to explain this transgression to Domenica. What young woman, with a promising future, would want any part of such a family? If he knew one thing about Domenica, it was that family was the center of her life. Here he was, a man of nearly forty whose mother had managed to run one son off to New Zealand, the other to the sea. John McVicars was an itinerant sailor who managed to stay away more months of the year than he was home. His father, who perished at sea, was a disappointment to his wife, who complained that he died just to spite her. Grizelle felt cheated, which turned her bitter. She made it a point to make her family as miserable as she was. Grizelle’s lack of respect for her son’s privacy did not come from a place of concern; instead, it was her last attempt to keep her son John tethered to her after the other men in her life abandoned her.

The captain finished the last cigarette he had rolled that afternoon.

It was two o’clock in the morning. He stacked Domenica’s letters in the order they were written on one side of the desk and cleared the other side. He retrieved his stationery, envelopes, and pen from the drawer.

He rubbed his eyes. He did not pick up the pen for a long time, but when he did, he did not stop writing until he finished a letter to Domenica Cabrelli. He doubted his words would matter, but that did not prevent him from writing them.


3 April 1940


Dear Domenica,

I have read the letters you sent. Thirteen in all. My mother had hidden them away, for reasons I do not understand. I cannot blame her entirely, however, for the distance between us. Letters or no letters, I should have returned to Marseille to see you and talk this through. The time wasted is my fault.

I have come to realize that the only time in my life that I found any happiness whatsoever was in your company. If this seems strange, imagine a man who preferred a life on the sea, who returned home to his mother’s house only when furloughed. I would drop my kit and pass the hours at the local bar until I could return to the ship. Home does not fill me with pleasant memories as Viareggio does for you. But I believe this is the only difference between us. We are simpatico, as your people say.

You see, before sleep, I picture the night we met. I sit in the chapel at Saint Joseph’s with you. I remember every word you said to me. There was a scent of incense in the air, and I was transported to an exotic port where only the two of us existed. My hands were burning that night, and I did not feel the pain because I was interested in your thoughts about every subject in the world. We talked, and yet there was not enough time to properly discuss anything with the intensity I craved. Our conversation helped me sort things, and I was grateful to you for having taken the time with me. For the months that followed, I found peace when I went back to that conversation. I thought of it before I would go off to sleep, and the memory of it cleared my conscience. I had not experienced that serenity since I was a young boy.