An Irish Christmas Part 10

"William," Margaret said, "this is Jamie Frederick. I was just complimenting him on his fine musical abilities."

I stood and the man shook my hand. Now I could see his hair was tinged with gray at the temples, and he peered at me with a pair of intensely blue eyes-eyes that seemed familiar somehow.

"I'm so pleased to meet you, Jamie. I was taken aback by your distinctive style of music. Perhaps Margaret mentioned it, but I play in a similar style and I have to say it's not something you hear every day." His accent was mostly Irish, but I sensed a hint of an American mixed in there as well.

"Jamie just told me that he's self-taught," Margaret said.

William seemed to consider this. "That's how I learned too."

My heart had started to pound again. It thumped against my chest, reminding me of when I'd played the ba.s.s drum in marching band. Something really strange seemed to be going on here. I couldn't explain it, but I felt as if I already knew this man. "Excuse me," I said without allowing myself time to reconsider. "But do you know anyone by the name of O'Neil?"

Margaret blinked. "William's last name is O'Neil."

I sank down to the padded piano bench now, unsure as to whether I really heard her correctly or if I was imagining this. "Your name is William O'Neil?" I said slowly, letting it sink it. William, not Liam.

He nodded. "Yes, that's right."

"By any chance, did you have a brother by the name of Liam?"

Margaret laughed. "Liam is a nickname for William." She nodded to William. "He used to go by Liam when he was younger. Didn't you, William?"

He nodded, but his eyes were fixed tightly on me.

I reached for my gla.s.s and took a big gulp of soda. The bubbles burned as it went down, making my eyes water.

"Are you feeling all right, Jamie?" Margaret asked. "You don't look well."

By now Kerry had returned. "How are you doing, Jamie? Dolan said some of the folks are asking if you're going to play again. They so enjoy your music."

"He seems unwell," Margaret said.

I looked up at Kerry and swallowed hard. "Margaret just told me that Liam is a nickname for William."

Kerry looked puzzled by my curious statement, but she just chuckled and picked up my soda gla.s.s and sniffed at it. "Is that all you've been drinking tonight, laddie?"

I nodded uneasily, but continued anyway. I needed to know the truth, the sooner the better. "You see, my father's name was Liam O'Neil."

Now they all looked slightly shocked, and I felt pretty stunned myself. I couldn't believe I'd just said this out loud. Good grief, there must've been hundreds of William O'Neils in Ireland. And, yet, I knew. Something in me just knew.

"What is your mother's name?" William asked in a quiet voice.

"Colleen."

William took in a deep breath, clasping his hand to his chest as if in pain. "Colleen Johnson?"

"Johnson was my mother's maiden name."

"May I sit down?" he asked slowly, steadying himself with one hand on the piano, the other clinging to his polished wooden cane.

I scooted over and made room for him on the bench beside me.

"Are you okay, William?" Margaret asked, her voice filled with concern.

He was taking slow deep breaths, and for a moment I thought perhaps he was having a heart attack. Just like my other father. Maybe I was a jinx-older men should keep their distance from me. Then William turned and looked at me with kind eyes. "How old are you, Jamie?"

"I'm twenty-one, sir. I was born July 27, 1942."

William took in another slow breath and just stared at me as if I were an apparition, then he slowly nodded again, as if this was all beginning to make perfect sense. His voice was calm now, but his hands trembled as he wrapped them around his cane. "I tried and tried to locate your dear mother . . ." He closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to remember something long ago. "Johnson was such a common name . . . I called every Johnson in the Los Angeles area, asking for a Colleen May Johnson. I tried to find her old roommate. But it was as if they had both disappeared. I wondered if I'd imagined Colleen Johnson. But I knew she was real. I did an exhausting search for her, but with no luck. After a year or so, I even wondered if she had died."

"She thought you'd been killed in Pearl Harbor," I told him.

He sighed. "Nearly . . ." He put his hand on my shoulder and I could see tears in his eyes. "Your mother was the only thing that kept me alive. I wanted to get back to her."

"Come, come," Kerry said, taking me by the arm. "You both go on over to that quiet table over there and sit down. You need to talk about these things in private."

Soon we were seated by ourselves, and we both just sat and stared at each other for several long moments. It was so much to take in, and I think we were both in shock. Dolan had set a whiskey in front of William and a gla.s.s of water in front of me.

"I can't believe it," he finally said.

I shook my head. "Me neither."

He asked me questions and I told him what I knew. How my mother thought he had died, how she had married my dad. "Well, I guess he wasn't really my dad," I explained. "But I thought he was. Just until recently . . . my mom only told me the truth a few days ago."

"This is so amazing . . . so incredible . . ." He shook his head again. "I can just hardly believe it." He reached across the table and grasped my forearm, giving it a squeeze. "You're really here? You're really my son? It's like a dream."

I nodded. "Yeah, I feel the same. So what happened? Mom said you were an officer in the Navy, that you'd gone to Honolulu, but that you weren't supposed to be there long."

"I had gone to work on some communications things . . . on the SS Arizona. I'd only been there a couple of days when we were attacked. So many people died that day. I should've been one of them." He nodded toward his lap. "I lost my left leg in the explosion, lost so much blood that it was a wonder I survived at all. I don't actually remember much of it because I had a severe blow to the head and a concussion. The story I heard was that someone picked me out of the water, put a tourniquet on, and got me to a hospital. I was out of it for weeks, and when I came to, I kept thinking of Colleen. I would imagine her face, and that kept me alive."

"Wow."

"You can say that again. It really was a miracle."

"And Mom didn't know you were alive?"

"I sent letters to her address, but they were returned."

"The same happened to her."

"That may be because I wasn't considered officially stationed in Honolulu at the time. I'd only gone over to do some work, after that I was supposed to return to San Diego for further orders. And it's possible that I was listed as missing in action for a while. The world was a mess back then."

"And then Mom got married," I said sadly. "And her name changed. No wonder you couldn't find her."

I asked him more questions and discovered that he'd been living in Ireland since the late forties. "After the war and all . . . I just couldn't find anywhere I felt at home in America again," he said. "I drifted from town to town, job to job, and finally I came over here to visit and liked it so well that I never went back to America."

"I like it here too."

Then he asked me lots and lots of questions. I told him my whole life story, and he sat there and listened to me as if I were the most exciting guy in the world. Ironic, considering all that he'd been through.

"I hate to ruin the party," Kerry said, "but we've been closed for nearly an hour."

I glanced at my watch. "Man, it's nearly eleven."

So William and Margaret and the couple with them gave me a ride back to town. "Is it all right if I call you tomorrow?" he asked as they dropped me in front of the hotel.

"Sure," I told him, getting out. "My mom is going to have a fit."

"A fit?" Margaret said.

"American slang," William said, winking at me.

Then I got out and waved, but as I went into the hotel, I had to wonder . . . what would Mom think of this? I'd have to be careful how I broke it to her-she might have a heart attack for real!

15.

Colleen It wasn't even seven in the morning when I heard knocking at my door. I sleepily pulled on my robe, then opened it to find Jamie standing in the hallway. He had an odd expression- I couldn't quite read it.

"Is something wrong?" I asked instinctively, then noticing that he was fully dressed, added, "Have you been out all night?"

"No and no," he said quickly. "I just got up really early and I couldn't wait for you to sleep any longer."

I smiled as I fastened the belt of my robe. "Now, isn't that a switch."

"Can you get dressed and come to breakfast?"

"Can I have twenty minutes?"

He frowned with impatience. "Yeah, I guess."

"Be right down." I closed the door and hurried to clean up and quickly dress, barely putting on makeup or doing my hair. I could tell by his nervous demeanor that despite his claim that nothing was wrong, something most definitely was up. I hoped it wasn't anything serious. Had he gotten into some sort of trouble when he'd been on that island, Inabobbin or whatever it was called? As I pushed my feet into my shoes, I reminded myself that worrying would not help. I remembered my resolve to trust G.o.d. And so as I hurried downstairs, I prayed. Please, let me take whatever this is calmly. Let me trust you implicitly, G.o.d, and help me to remember that you are able to fix anything. Amen.

"You're here," Jamie said brightly, pulling out a chair for me. We were the only ones in the restaurant and I wasn't even sure they were open yet, although I thought I smelled coffee drifting from the kitchen area.

"What is going on?" I asked in a controlled voice, forcing a smile. "You have me quite curious."

He slowly inhaled, then placed both of his hands palms down on the table and exhaled. "You are not going to believe this, Mom."

I thought I could feel my blood pressure rise, but I kept my face expressionless and just waited. "Try me."

"My father is alive."

I blinked and steadied myself. Had my son taken leave of his senses? "No, Jamie," I said calmly. "Your father is not alive. I saw him . . . uh, in his coffin . . . before the internment, and Hal was most a.s.suredly-"

"No, not that father, Mom. William, I mean Liam O'Neil-he is alive."

"Jamie . . ." I glanced toward the kitchen now, longing for someone to come out and help me make sense of this or at least bring some coffee to clear my head. "I think you must be confused-"

"No, Mom. I know it probably sounds crazy, and I had a feeling it would be hard for you to believe this. It wasn't easy for me either. But, really, I met him last night. Liam O'Neil is very much alive."

I considered this. "Do you mean you met someone by that name, because if that's the case, I'm sure there must be dozens of Liam O-"

"No, Mom, really, this is the guy-the real deal. We talked for a couple of hours. He told me everything-about Pearl Harbor, about you, and how he lost his leg."

I blinked and leaned back in my chair, trying to catch my breath and to take this in. Was Jamie crazy? "What on earth are you saying?"

"Liam O'Neil is alive. He's been living in Ireland for about fifteen years and he's a really great guy."

I felt like I couldn't breathe just now, like someone had wrapped a thick corset around my rib cage and pulled it tight. I wondered if I should lean over and put my head between my knees, allow some oxygen to my brain, but instead I just sat there, staring at my son. Was it possible that he'd been smoking some of that marijuana that I'd just read about? Or perhaps that other new drug LDS or SLD or whatever that mind-altering chemical was called?

"Jamie?" I tried again, my shaky voice coming out in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "Are you certain you weren't hallucinating?"

He actually smiled now. "Listen to me, I really met him. It was my piano music that brought this whole thing up. This lady named Margaret came up and told me that I played just like him, and she talked to me for a while, then introduced me to the guy, and it really was him." He was so excited that I couldn't help but almost believe him. "Isn't it great?"

I just shook my head, still trying to absorb all of this. Liam was alive . . . a woman named Margaret . . . they had spoken to my son. "And who is Margaret?" I finally asked. My voice sounded like that of a small child, and it felt as if the earth were moving beneath my feet, like I was losing my balance, tipping sideways.

"I don't really know exactly," he admitted. "I mean, she was with Liam and everything. But when she introduced herself, I think she said she was his friend." He brightened. "She's also a friend of Kerry's. Kerry introduced me to Margaret. And Liam and Margaret were with this other couple, I can't even remember their names, but they live near Clifden. Liam and Margaret live in Galway. I think they came to visit for the weekend."

I took in a shaky breath. "And what did Kerry think of all this? Was she convinced that this Liam person was really your father as well?"

"Of course. Because he is."

"But, Jamie . . . it just sounds so-so impossible."

So then he went into detail about how Liam had been on the SS Arizona when the bombs fell that day, and how he'd been seriously injured, unconscious for a long time, and how he lost a leg . . . and slowly it all began to sink in. It began to make a tiny speck of sense. Those were strange times back then. So much going on. I supposed people, papers, records . . . maybe it could've gotten mixed up.

"But what about the Red Cross?" I tried.

"Liam said he wasn't actually stationed in Honolulu," Jamie continued. "He was only supposed to be there for a couple of weeks. That's why they didn't have a record of him and probably why your letters were returned."

I nodded. Everything seemed fuzzy and blurry just now, as if the restaurant had filled with smoke, but no one was smoking. Although I wasn't a smoker, I almost felt as if I could use a cigarette. "Yes," I said meekly, "that sounds possible . . ."

"So, do you believe me now?"

"To be honest, I don't know what I think just now, Jamie." I glanced to the kitchen. "Could you see if someone could get me a cup of coffee . . . or a gla.s.s of water or something?" My throat felt tight and it was still difficult to breathe. I wasn't sure if I was about to cry or laugh or have a stroke. But Jamie left and came back after a couple of minutes with a cup of coffee.

I took a cautious sip, then a slow breath. "Thanks."

"Are you okay?"

"I don't know . . ."