An Irish Christmas Part 11

"It was a shock. I understand. I wanted to tell you as carefully as possible."

"You did just fine, son." I took in another slow breath.

"It'll get better," he rea.s.sured me. "After it sinks in some. I was pretty stunned at first too."

I just nodded and took another sip of coffee. It was black and hot and I usually drank mine with cream, but right now I didn't care. Jamie waited patiently as I sat there slowly sipping my coffee in amazed silence. I felt like I wasn't really there just then, like I was just floating around and watching this woman and her son. Finally, I remembered the prayer I'd prayed in the stairs. I silently prayed it again. G.o.d, help me with this. That was all. I thought I could breathe again.

"Do you feel better now?" Jamie asked after I finished my coffee.

"Yes. I think so. But I suppose I'm still in shock. It's a lot to take in."

He reached over and put his hand on mine. "I know."

Then I smiled at my son. Despite my tumultuous feelings, I had to appreciate how mature he was being just now. How supportive and understanding. When had he grown up so fast? "Thanks."

We talked about it some more. Jamie told me how Margaret had mentioned how much he looked like Liam when he was younger. "She must've known him for a long time."

I nodded, almost afraid to admit it. "You do look like him, Jamie. Strikingly so."

"He seems really nice."

"Did he play piano for you?"

"No." Jamie frowned now. "But I'd sure like to hear him.

" "That would be nice." Even as I said these words, I wondered at myself. How was I calmly sitting here? How was I able to hear all this without falling completely apart?

"You're going to see him too, aren't you?"

I considered thi s. "Do you think he wants to see me?"

"Of course!"

Finally the waitress appeared, refilled my coffee cup, and took our order. I didn't feel the least bit hungry, but I ordered a bowl of oatmeal anyway.

"I told him he could call today."

"Here?" I asked stupidly. "At the hotel?"

"Sure. Is that okay?"

My hand flew up to my hair. I knew I must look disheveled and how, feeling so rushed, I hadn't dressed very carefully, hadn't even put on lipstick. "When?"

"I don't know. Probably not this early."

"Yes, of course."

As I picked at my oatmeal, I wondered about Liam. What would he think of me now? I was so much older. And who was Margaret?

"Did Liam tell you if he married?" I asked suddenly. "Does he have children?"

"He didn't mention it."

"Oh . . ."

"How do you feel about him now, Mom?"

I stared at my son, looking so much like his father. "I don't know, Jamie. It's been so long that it doesn't even seem real to me. If I didn't have you, I might even doubt that I'd ever known someone named Liam O'Neil. It's like an old movie that I watched a long time ago."

"But it's real, Mom. He's real. You know that, right? You do believe me?"

"Yes, of course, I believe you." I looked down at the table. "Do you mind if I excuse myself, Jamie? I still need some time to process all this."

"Sure, Mom." He even stood as I got up. Such a gentleman. When had he grown up so nicely?

"I'll be in my room," I said as I set the linen napkin on the chair.

"I'll finish up my breakfast and then be in my room too."

Then, feeling slightly robotic, I mindlessly walked out of the dining room, mechanically up the stairs and into my room where I locked the door, then sat down on my still unmade bed and just cried. I wasn't sure exactly why I was crying-were they tears of regret? Fear? Anger? Relief? Or perhaps just a cleansing of sorts.

But, after the tears subsided, I knew I had only one resort. I knew that I needed to give all of this to G.o.d. It was far too much for me to carry alone. And so I did. Then I took a long, soothing bath, adding some salts that I'd picked up in town. After that, I carefully did my hair and my makeup. Then I put on the lovely black-and-white Donegal suit that I'd purchased in Dublin. I studied myself in the mirror, and although I was much older than the last time Liam had seen me, I thought perhaps I didn't look too bad.

I wasn't sure what to do then. I certainly didn't trust myself alone with my thoughts. If not for my prayers, I felt I was hanging by an emotional thread. So I went and knocked on Jamie's room and told him that I was going to take a walk.

"You won't be gone long, will you?" He looked worried.

"No, I just want to stretch my legs while the weather holds. I heard it's going to rain again this afternoon."

He grinned. "What a surprise."

"I may stop at McGinney's for a cup of coffee," I said. "And to read the paper."

He nodded as if making a mental note of this. "Okay."

Then I went for a little walk, but most of the shops were closed and the streets fairly deserted. Then I realized it was Sunday and people were probably at ma.s.s or church. Fortunately, McGinney's, as usual, was open. So I got my coffee and then sat and distracted myself by reading the paper. I'd been curious as to what was going on in the United States lately. Life had seemed tenuous since the Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination, and I had meant to keep up on the news. I felt as if the future was shaky. Not just for me personally but for our whole country, perhaps the whole world.

"Colleen?"

I looked up from my paper and instantly knew who this tall handsome man was, but I was unable to answer.

"May I join you?"

I nodded and set the newspaper aside. "Liam?" The word emerged as a whisper.

He smiled as he sat. "Colleen, you look just as beautiful as ever."

I felt myself blus.h.i.+ng. "You look fine too." I liked the distinctive gray hair that had gathered at his temples and the fine creases by his eyes, as if he smiled a lot. This made me feel happy.

"I'm still in complete shock." He slowly shook his head. "This is all so unbelievable."

"I know . . ."

"I have so many questions."

"So do I."

"Ladies first?"

I wasn't so sure I wanted to go first. I wasn't even sure where to begin. "I wrote to you in Honolulu," I finally said. "Over and over. My letters were all returned."

"That's what Jamie said."

"I was frantic when I discovered I was pregnant." I shook my head as I recalled the horror at that discovery.

"I wish we'd gotten married."

"I was so stupid."

"You were trying to be sensible."

"No," I admitted. "I was being selfish and vain. I wanted to have a real wedding. I wanted my family to come out and meet you. I wanted to show you off." I looked down at the table, swallowed hard against the lump in my throat.

"I triedto find you, Colleen. I really did."

"Jamie told me that."

"When I got back to the mainland, you and Wanda weren't at the apartment. No one knew where either of you had gone, there was no forwarding address. I made so many phone calls to Johnson families in Southern California, all with no results . . . finally I just gave up. It seemed like you had vanished into thin air."

"We lost the apartment. Wanda got married, her name changed. And my family is just one of thousands of Johnsons in Minnesota, not California." I sighed at the hopelessness of two people separated by war and life and death and desperate circ.u.mstances. "I got a job selling shoes . . . I moved to Pasadena in December, then got married after a couple of months . . . my last name changed to Frederick."

"Jamie told me that your husband died a year and a half ago."

"Hal was a good man, he took good care of us."

He nodded sadly. "Did you love him?"

"I was desperate . . . I didn't think I could raise a child by myself. Hal loved me and in time I learned to love him . . . in a way . . . and he was a good dad to Jamie."

"Jamie is a fine young man. You did an excellent job raising him."

This made me laugh. "Jamie is what Jamie was going to be. I think you've had as much to do with it as I have-he is so like you."

He seemed to consider this. "I just couldn't believe it when I heard him playing the piano last night." Liam's eyes lit up. "It was so amazing to find out who he was. I'm sure my friends thought I was about to have a heart attack. I never dreamed I had a son, Colleen-that we had a son. It was so incredible, surreal. But hearing him on the piano, well, I just knew."

"I sort of know what you mean about the piano." Then I told him about my own experience less than a week ago, how Jamie had taken me so by surprise and how I had only told him the truth about Liam after that. "That's why I brought him to Ireland," I explained. "I thought it was the perfect place to tell him."

"More perfect than you knew."

Liam's eyes seemed to look right into me-past my calm veneer and straight to my soul. I wasn't sure what to say now. "I'm curious about your friends," I finally ventured. "Jamie mentioned them to me."

"Devin and I have been friends for years. He and Myrna have a lovely home a bit outside of Clifden. We came out here for the weekend-a little getaway. And Margaret is an old friend of mine."

I nodded as if that was all very nice, but I really wanted to ask him more about Margaret. What kind of "old friend" was she?

"Did Jamie tell you about my leg?" He held up his cane as if it were a prop. "Lost it in Pearl Harbor."

"Yes. I was so sorry to hear that. That must've been hard." "Not nearly as hard as losing you. . ." Was there a trace of bitterness in his voice? Was it about me or the leg?

"I'm so sorry, Liam."

"I eventually resolved myself to my unlucky lot in life. It could've been worse . . . so many didn't survive that day. I finally convinced myself it might've been for the best-not finding you, I mean. I wasn't sure how you'd react to a one-legged husband, and I wasn't sure how I'd react to being rejected."

"And I might've been married by the time you found me," I said, which was sad but true.

He looked down at the table, tracing a long, graceful forefinger over the grain of the wood.

"So, did you marry, Liam? Have children?"

"No to both."

"I'm sorry."

His eyes twinkled now. "Wait. I take that back. I did have a child."

"Oh, yes!" My hand flew up to my mouth to think of this. "Jamie."

He leaned forward eagerly. "I want to get to know him better."

"I don't know why you shouldn't."

"He said you were going back to the States after the holidays."

"Our tickets are for the twenty-sixth," I admitted. "Jamie had insisted we keep the trip to two weeks. He wanted to be home for New Year's Eve."

"Big plans, eh?"

I shrugged. I still wanted to ask him more about this Margaret person. But how did one do this gracefully? At least they weren't married. That was some consolation. But what if they were involved? Besides, it was quite possible that Liam had no feelings left for me. After all, I was the one who gave up so quickly. I was the one who got married.

We continued to talk, filling in some of the blank s.p.a.ces, telling each other bits and pieces of so much that had happened in the past twenty-two years. I told him a lot about Jamie. And he told me about how returning to Ireland was a life-changing experience for him, explaining how he found himself as well as G.o.d here on the Emerald Isle. It was quite a moving story. I even told him about how I'd been learning to let go of my hold on Jamie and trusting G.o.d instead. Perhaps it had to do with Ireland.

And to my surprise, after an hour or so, I felt fairly relaxed- almost as if we hadn't been apart all those years. It was amazing, really. And I loved hearing about Liam's life. How he'd returned to college on his GI bill and gotten his music degree, how he'd taught at several universities and occasionally did concerts here in Ireland. "Music is an enormous part of my life."

"How exciting," I said, marveling again at the color of his eyes-still as intensely blue as ever. "Does Jamie know about any of this?"

"We didn't get terribly far last night. To be honest, I was so stunned that I hardly recall what we did speak about."

"He'll be thrilled to get to know you. He loves music dearly, more so than I even knew, and I'm afraid I haven't been terribly encouraging."