Sandcastles Read online

  Then, in 1847, a second famine struck.

  Back then, so many Irish were emigrating to America, it sometimes seemed there’d be no one left. People boarded steamers in Cobh, bound for Boston, Providence, and New York. The news that flowed back was always good—never bad. People in the States weren’t doing well, they were doing very well. They weren’t making a good living, they were prosperous.

  Seamus knew he had to save his only son, Cormac. He had learned of work in the United States. The Kellys of Merrion Square in Dublin needed stonemasons to build walls on their properties in Hartford and Black Hall, Connecticut. Seamus and Emily were heartbroken to send Cormac off, but they had seen what the last famine had done, and they couldn’t bear to risk his life.

  With his parents at his side, Cormac walked over the hills to the old stagecoach road. He carried a suitcase in his hand; in his heart he carried his family’s love and all the skills his father had taught him as a stonemason. Just as the stagecoach came, his father reached into his pocket and pulled out the pirate’s ring.

  “This is your inheritance,” Seamus said. “I found it on your grandfather’s land, years ago, and he gave it to me. It’s precious, because in some ways it brought me and your mother together. In case times get hard, you can sell it.”

  Emily never said a word about Seamus’s keeping the ring. She cared only about her son, that he have enough to help him get started in a new life. She held her tears until the stagecoach came, and Cormac climbed in. Her beautiful, young, skinny, hopeful boy…When the coach pulled away, the moaning of the wild wind blowing hard across the western hills was all mixed in with her keening for her oldest son.

  He was only sixteen, and she never saw him again.

  Honor knew all this from Emily’s diary, which John had eventually found in the West Cork Heritage Center, along with many other family documents. It had sent him to Cobh, to literally climb into the holds of the famine ships, touch the wood that had soaked up so many tears. And there on the docks, he had met up with Gregory White.

  Thinking of all that, standing at her easel, Honor heard a strange sound. It was hollow, clanging, like the tolling of a bell. It was dull, not clear like the chapel bell, and it seemed to be coming from the beach. Putting down her brush, cleaning her hands with a linseed oil–soaked rag, she opened the screen door.

  The sound drew her outside; she walked barefoot across the yard, feeling each hammer strike in her heart. She knew where she was going, of course. John couldn’t have summoned her more effectively if he’d called her name. The sound drew her across the lawn, down the hill, through the tangled gorse that grew upon the bank.

  The cottage was built at the very top of the beach, as far above the tide line as possible. It had been used by the Kellys, long ago, for beach parties, a place to dress for summer dances. Normal high tides reached the sand twenty-five yards down. Run-of-the-mill summer storms sent their strongest waves fifteen yards from the front steps. But hurricanes and winter gales were another story, and they had done damage to the small stone cottage, chipped away at its foundation, sent cracks up the walls.

  Just beyond it, she saw John standing on the sand, his legs braced, attacking a rock with a sledgehammer. She started to run, sand giving under her feet; when she got to the spot where John had revived Agnes last night, her heart jolted—she flashed back to the indentation where she had lain, dark bloodstains on the sand.

  “What are you doing?” she shouted.

  He didn’t even hear, just kept smashing the boulder.

  “John!”

  He stopped, looked over at her. Stunned, he dropped the sledgehammer, brushed his hands on his jeans. His body was slick with sweat, and his face had tiny cuts from flying stone.

  “Jesus Christ,” she said under her breath. “It never ends.”

  Then she took a deep breath. “She’s home,” she said. “I wanted to let you know. Agnes is home.”

  “I know,” he said, catching his breath. “I walked over before, but she was sleeping on the sunporch.”

  “Why didn’t you come in? She would have liked to see you.”

  “And I’d like to see her,” he said. “All of them. All of you. I’ve missed you so much.” He stared at her, but she couldn’t hold his gaze. She thought of her painting, how she’d been trying to capture his intensity. Well, here it was.

  “I didn’t go in,” John continued, “because I didn’t want to disturb her. I would have knocked, but I saw you in your studio.”

  She nodded, but didn’t speak. She didn’t want to let him into her work. It was private, hers. “Why are you staying here?” she asked instead.

  “You want me to go back to Ireland?” he asked.

  “I mean here, on the beach. I’m sure Bernie would find a place for you at the Academy. Or Tom…”

  “This just seems right,” he said.

  “A ramshackle, moldy stone house, on its last legs? If we have a nor’easter, you could get washed away in your sleep.”

  “Would that bother you, Honor?” he asked, blue eyes glinting with dark fire. “Never mind. I won’t put you on the spot.”

  “I am on the spot,” she said, her heart pounding. “I don’t know how to be around you. What to say, how to feel. God, when I saw Agnes on the beach, just lying there, all I could think of was Regis, in shock and broken; I was sure she’d never be the same again…”

  “I know,” John said.

  “Seeing Agnes’s blood on the sand.” Honor glanced over at the spot. It was pristine now, scoured by wind and waves, but she swore she could still see it. “I thought of that day, seeing his blood.”

  “I think of it every day,” John said.

  “You left us then,” she said.

  “Left you? It wasn’t my wish—they arrested me.”

  “You could have fought the charges!” Honor yelled, exploding. “If we meant so much to you, why didn’t you try harder to come home to us? You were defending Regis! Your daughter! What could they have expected you to do?”

  “Nothing,” he said, his eyes blazing.

  “Then why didn’t you speak out?” she rapped out. “Why didn’t you fight?”

  “You don’t understand,” he said.

  “I know, John. And I didn’t understand in Ireland, either. Not the first time I visited you in prison, or the time after that. Or even the last time. I’ve never been able, not once, to get it through my head. Why you just went to jail…you’re so stubborn. You always were.”

  “I killed Gregory White,” he said. His voice was even, but his eyes were wild.

  “I know that,” she said. “And I know he attacked you. Explain it to me someday, will you? Tell me what you had in mind, going to prison without one word in your own defense?”

  “Honor…”

  “And I’ll tell you how it’s been for the girls. Okay?” She was crazy now, and she knew it. Her fury had started simmering in her studio, at her easel, but now it was boiling. “They’re desperate. They’ve missed you so terribly, I don’t know if they’ll ever be okay. Regis getting married? She didn’t have a father to hold on to, so she latched onto the first boy she found. Cecilia’s okay. She’s young, though. And Agnes? Jesus, where do I start?”

  “Agnes?”

  “She has visions. That’s right, you heard me. She knows that Bernie had one once, and she’s frantic to have one of her own. She’s silent on Tuesdays, because that’s the day you killed Greg White.”

  “Oh God,” John said.

  She turned away, started walking as fast as she could. He ran to her, grabbing her arm. The look in his eyes scared her—the skin was stretched over his skull, and his eyes were blue fire.

  Their eyes met and held for a few seconds; she saw old hope in his, something she recognized from long ago. A spark, as if for that instant he believed that everything just might be okay, that it had to be okay. She felt spent, almost sorry for throwing the blame for everything at him. She looked in his eyes, saw tears brimming there and h
ow terrible it had all been for him. She waited for him to speak, but instead he exhaled with excruciating frustration and turned away.

  He walked over to the big rock and hefted the sledgehammer. He started swinging, attacking the rock as if it were his enemy. There was that sound again—the metal against stone she’d mistaken for a bell.

  “John,” she cried. “What are you doing?”

  “This rock is going to be gone,” he said over his shoulder, swinging again and again. “It hurt Agnes, Honor, and I’m getting rid of it.”

  “It’s a rock,” she yelled. “You can’t just pulverize it!”

  He didn’t even reply—just kept pounding with his sledgehammer. His muscles tensed and bunched, and he swung at the rock as if he hated it. Sparks flew. Honor stood back, in shock and speechless, both moved and appalled.

  As she backed away, she could see that he was lost in what he was doing. She saw his passion and rage, and was gripped with the realization that this was the man she had always loved, the man she sometimes feared. It was the same thing all over; nothing had changed. The entire way back to the house, she heard his violent hammer strikes. They didn’t stop or even let up.

  The sound went on all night.

  Honor didn’t sleep at all.

  She gave up and went to her studio. The desire to paint came over her, and the work began to flow. As charged up as she felt about John, she couldn’t deny the effect it was having on her work. This new painting was primal, coming from deep within, nothing like the delicate seascapes and portraits she did for her art classes. From her window, she watched the stars wheel across the sky, rising and setting to the rhythm of John breaking apart the rock.

  By the time the sun began to rise, turning the sky deep blue with a ribbon of rose along the horizon in the east, Honor put down her brushes. She felt exhausted but exhilarated. Morning haze lay gently on the ground. She walked out the back door, through the vineyard. Birds were starting to sing in the trees, and gulls called from the tidal flats.

  Honor followed the stone wall, her heart beating faster with every step. She startled a red fox; it leapt onto the wall, running a few steps before jumping down the other side. As she approached the crest of the hill, looking down at the beach, she already knew what she would find.

  The rock was gone.

  One night—that was all it took for John to destroy something created by fire and ice a million years ago—the boulder that had hurt their daughter. The sound of the sledgehammer was finally silenced. John sat on the beach, staring at the sun rising over the peaceful bay. Honor stood on the hill, watching him for a few minutes.

  John was lost in his private thoughts. She couldn’t imagine what they were, and in that moment she wanted to know more than anything in the world. When he didn’t turn around, didn’t even move, Honor just backed away.

  And she walked silently back through the lush green vineyard, home to their sleeping daughters.

  Eleven

  Time moved differently for John. In jail it had been scheduled down to fifteen-minute increments. Wake up, meals, head counts, work, exercise, bed. Here, it was measured by tides, sunrises, shifting weather patterns, and the moon moving across the sky. Through it all, he watched for Honor. He wanted her to come back, see what he’d done to the rock. At the same time, he was worried that she’d be afraid. He had scared even himself.

  He had attacked the rock with white fury. His muscles ached and cramped in his back and shoulders, burning hard. Ever since seeing Agnes in the hospital, he had known he had to do this. Honor always said his passions got the best of him, and right now he knew she was right. Her grief had been palpable; her rage, over being left in confusion and doubt, his going to jail without a fight, had spurred his own. Not at her, at all, but at just about everything else.

  His hatred of the thing that had hurt Agnes—all the ways his being locked up had damaged his daughters—had taken hold of him, and he’d poured all his frustration into the rock. Now, looking at the rubble in the shallow water, he felt almost embarrassed to think of what Honor would think.

  Meow…

  He looked around, saw the white cat sitting on the wall. She was so still and thin, the age showing in her eyes and the texture of her fur, and the sight of her sent a jolt through his entire body.

  “Sisela,” he said.

  It couldn’t be…

  No, John thought, his heart racing as he slowly approached the cat on the wall. It couldn’t be her; it had to be another cat. One of her progeny, perhaps. Or maybe this was her ghost, coming back to haunt him.

  She meowed again, and when she opened her mouth to make the sound, he saw that she had barely any teeth left. This was an old, old cat. He reached out his hand. The cat didn’t just inch forward, but leapt into his arms—just as she had when she was a kitten.

  “Sisela,” he said. Regis used to say she was the fourth Sullivan sister, and that’s how John felt now. He cradled the old cat as she purred against his chest, the sound like a low sobbing. She craned her neck, nuzzling his chin. John’s eyes stung as he stroked her, thinking of all the years they’d been apart. He thought of how often he’d held his daughters like this, and how often Sisela had wedged her way into the embrace.

  “Well, that’s a pretty sight.”

  Hearing the words, John looked up and saw Tom there, grinning.

  “It’s really her, isn’t it?” John asked.

  “That old cat of yours, yes, it is,” Tom said. “She’s on that damn wall every time I pass by. Must’ve been waiting for you to get home. It’s good to see you, John.”

  “You made it happen,” John said. Sisela remained snuggled against his chest. He held on for comfort—but for his or the cat’s, he wasn’t sure. “You got me out, and you brought me home, and you got this place ready for me.”

  “How’re you doing?” Tom asked.

  John nodded. His throat was closed so tight, he couldn’t talk. He petted the cat some more, and then set her down in the tall grass at the top of the beach. She circled once, then stalked away.

  “You’re really back,” Tom said. “And the first thing you do is attack a boulder.” Tom gestured at the crowbar and sledgehammer leaning against the cottage. Then he looked out at the empty bay. “Where did it go?”

  “Let’s not go into it,” John said. “It’s just gone.”

  “Honor gave me a call.”

  “Really?”

  “She was worried about you. Let’s see, what did she say? ‘John’s acting extreme.’ I think she said ‘very extreme.’”

  “Yeah, well…”

  Tom just shook his head, smiling as he jumped down the bank. The old friends hugged, and John laughed, feeling a sudden exuberance. The sun was in his eyes; he squinted to see Tom better, and he saw Tom doing the same: John felt Tom assessing him, just as Honor and Bernie had done, seeing how he’d weathered prison.

  “You look good,” Tom said finally.

  “Liar.”

  “I’m serious. You sure look a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

  “In the waiting room, surrounded by other inmates?” John said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, freedom makes everyone look better,” John said. “At least you and Sisela didn’t cringe when you saw me.”

  “Did Honor?”

  John nodded. “Once she saw me in the light of day. Our first meeting was right here—after Agnes’s accident. And then yesterday she came to blast me.”

  “Well deserved,” Tom said.

  “You want to take your shots, too?” John asked, anger rising.

  “Whoa, calm down,” Tom said,

  “Yeah, fine,” John said, shaking it off.

  “Bernie tells me Agnes is making a really great recovery,” Tom said. “The question is, how about you? What kind of recovery are you making?”

  “Recovery?”

  “From prison.”

  “You mean, am I rehabilitated?” John asked, laughing bitterly. />
  “I mean, do you lie awake wanting to rip someone’s head off for sending you to jail in the first place? Do you have nightmares of being locked up for being a good guy who just encountered the wrong person? Nice stuff like that. That’s what I mean.”

  “Look, I’m fine. Putting it all behind me.”

  Tom stared through narrowed eyes. “Right. That’s why you annihilated that big goddamn rock that’s been sitting here since the last ice age.”

  “It wasn’t so hard to do; the thing had a big crack right down the middle. I just worked on the weak spots.”

  “Whatever you say. It took you all night. Come on, let’s take a walk. I’ll show you my latest work assignment from Sister Bernadette Ignatius. I’d like to get your expert opinion.”

  John grabbed his T-shirt from the beach, shook off the sand, and pulled it on, trying to hide the fact that he was shaking. Tom had some idea of what John had been through, but no one could really know.

  John’s body ached—from pounding on the rock hour after hour, but even more, from all the years he’d spent apart from everything he loved. There had been times he thought he would die from longing. Missing Honor had never seemed greater than in the middle of the night, an ocean away, locked behind bars. But he thought maybe it was even worse right now, with her and their girls just over the hill.

  The two men climbed the bank. They followed the wall, heading down the opposite side of the hill from Honor’s house, through the western edge of the vineyard, to the Blue Grotto. John remembered coming here with Honor, kissing her in the dark. She’d always shiver in here, and he’d hold her close.

  And the summer before his arrest, he’d helped Bernie out, wheeling in a barrow full of rocks and a tray full of mortar, wielding his great-grandfather’s trowel and smoothing out the cement’s rough edges.

  “What does Bernie want done here?” John asked, walking into the moss-cool cave made by his great-grandfather, looking around.

  “She wants some repointing, new mortar, a few stones put back. It started out with one stone pried away—vandals, we figured…”