Except that the man on my door is not Mr. Hubbard at all.
“Sorry.” John O’Neill eyes my oversized men’s bathrobe and spiky wet hair. “Bad time?”
Dark circles stain the skin under his eyes, and he’s got the sour smell of a man who’s been cooped up recently on an airplane. He’s wearing rumpled civilian clothes.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
“You have my phone. It has a GPS function.”
“Did you plan that?” I ask angrily. “Lend me your jacket just so you could track it across the world?”
“No. I didn’t plan it. But it was lucky for me that you turned it on while you were here,” he says. “You cut your hair. It looks good.”
Surely he’s kidding. Very few men like short hair on a woman. They think we’re lesbians or man-haters. But he seems sincere.
“Can I come in?” He holds up a paper bag. “I brought bagels. With nutella. I don’t like nutella, but I thought maybe you would.”
So, yes, I’m angry he came looking for me, but let’s be frank. My doorstep hasn’t seen this fine a man since the bathroom flooded and the landlord sent Thomas the plumber. Shabby clothes but a chiseled jaw and lovely biceps, that Thomas.
“It’s a mess inside,” I warn him.
“I live in a barracks with a dozen unwashed men. When they throw their underwear aside, sometimes it sticks to the wall.”
I grimace. He grimaces, too, and says, “Sorry, I’ve been awake for twenty hours.”
“Just to come see me?”
“It’s my mother,” he says. “She’s dying.”
Once inside, seated at my breakfast table, he tells the whole tale. He’d barely been settled back with his unit in Iraq before the Red Cross delivered another message. His mother has fallen ill and is not expected to survive much longer. He’s the only child, no close relatives to speak of, and she needs him. Also, she asked for him to bring home the “girl who sang” for his father.
“I know it’s an imposition,” he says. “But it’s a dying woman’s wish and I’d be in your debt.”
It’s hard to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry about your mother, but I’m not allowed. I’m not properly qualified. It’s a special thing that requires a special person. But I can find you one . . . ”
“I don’t need anyone else,” he says. “You’re qualified enough. You sang for him and you can sing for her. For me, when she goes. I won’t have anyone left.”
“I’m not licensed, Mr. O’Neill. I don’t have permission. I didn’t pass the exam. I didn’t even take it.”
He looks puzzled. “Why not?”
Some things are better shown than told. “Come this way, and please ignore my terrible housekeeping.”
On the mantel in my living room wall is a portrait of my mother in her official garb. Her black gown flows like liquid off her shoulders. Her hair blows backward in the wind. A vintage photo of my grandmother, taken on the moors, is propped next to it. Her wool gown is steel gray, and she wears a frilly shawl.
“To be a banshee you have to look the part,” I tell him. “I don’t even own a single dress.”
John scratches his head. “They don’t pay you enough at the airline?”
“It’s not about money.” I drag him into my bedroom. “There. That’s my closet. That’s what I like and that’s what I wear.”
For a long moment he stares at the pleated trousers and pants, the pinstripe shirts and wool sports coats, the half-zip sweaters and sweater vests. Boxes of men’s shoes and boots are stacked on the shelves and ties hang neatly on a rack.
“You wear your boyfriend’s clothes?” he asks.
I cross my arms over my chest. “They’re mine. Next, ask me if I’m a lesbian. Because that’s what they call women who don’t like to wear frills and lace and dresses barely to the thigh, right?”
John reaches out and runs his fingers along a linen jacket.
I wait for him to make some scathing comment.
He says, “You have great taste. Now, what will it take to get you packed and on a plane for Boston?”
“You said I can’t say no to an O’Neill,” I tell Maeve. “So here we are.”
Maeve’s standing at her office door, which is barely cracked open. Through it, she’s eyeing John O’Neill sitting by the coat rack. I left him with Loman, who squeaked like a mouse when I brought a human through the front door. Maeve says, “Handsome one, isn’t he?”
This is not what I want to hear. “Will you please tell him you forbid me from going to America and singing for his dying mother?”
Maeve swings open the door. “Mr. O’Neill! Such a pleasure to meet you in person.”
John quickly stands up. “Thank you. Miss . . . ”
“Call me Maeve.” She shakes his hand robustly. “Your mother is from Galway, is she? What of her mother before her, and your great-grandmother?”
“I think they were all from Galway, too.”
“It suffered terrible damage during the Oídhche na Gaoıthe Móıre,” Maeve said.
He looks perplexed. “I don’t speak Gaelic, ma’am.”
“Night of the Big Wind,” I put in. “It was a big storm. Damaged a lot of the country.”
Historians and meteorologists know it as a devastating windstorm that wrecked houses, sank fishing boats, and brought a large storm surge to many low-lying villages. It also just happened to be the culmination of a century-long Fairy War that scattered the survivors and left a bitter taste for decades. It’s not like Maeve to drop casual refeences to it in conversation, regardless of where John’s great-grandmother might come from.
“I’m sadly uneducated in Irish history or customs,” John tells Maeve. I don’t think he’s used to looking up to a woman taller than he is. “All I know is that Colleen says she needs your permission to attend to my mother’s passing.”
“Nonsense!” Maeve exclaims, to my utter shock. “I’m merely a consultant. I would never interfere with such a decision. Our Colleen is her own person, quite independent. As you can tell from her choice of attire.”
His gaze focuses on me. “I think she looks great.”
I blush.
“Go with my blessing,” Maeve says, patting my head. “Send us a message to let us know you arrived safely. And my deepest sympathy to you, Mr. O’Neill, on your losses.”
Which is how John and I end up as passengers on a British Airways flight to Boston three hours later. Nothing was available in First Class or Business, so we’re jammed in Economy. John generously gives me the window and sits in the aisle next to a college student who sticks ear buds into his ears and plays computer games for six solid hours.
“Tell me about your clothes,” John says, just as it seems like we’ll be stuck on this plane forever. “When did you decide you hated dresses?”
I try not to sound defensive. “The minute my mother put me in one. Every day after school I’d rip off my uniform skirt and get into trousers. Girl’s clothes just don’t make sense. They’re flimsy and frilly and make you look silly.”
“I guess I should ditch my lace underwear,” he says, his expression dry.
I gape at him. “You’re not.”
He smiles. “No. But I had a friend in boot camp who did. Big secret. Who cares?”
“Plenty of people.”
“Let them worry about other things, like war and death.” His smile fades then. He peers past me through the window at the flawless blue sky. “Do you know . . . is she dying? My mother?”
I squeeze his hand. “I don’t sense anything.”
He sits back in his seat. “She can’t leave. Not yet.”
Death doesn’t work that way, but we both know that already.
Finally the flight ends with a town car and chauffer waiting for us in Boston. The car takes us north along the winding coastline. John is an army sergeant on a limited income but his parents’ house in Marblehead is a white and gray mansion overlooking the ocean. It’s getting to be dusk but the whitecaps on the ocean are clear, as is the smell of salt and seaweed.
“My father made his fortune in commercial fishing long before I was born,” John says when he helps me out of the car. “I never even saw any of his boats.”
A housekeeper greets us, followed by a male nurse in a blue uniform. I expected Mrs. O’Neill to be in a hospital but she obviously afford top-notch care here at home. She’s up in a second-floor bedroom, sequestered behind white double doors, and John excuses himself to see to her.
My guest room is full of fine furniture and a view of the Atlantic Ocean, black and fathomless. The housekeeper says dinner will be ready soon. In the bathroom I freshen up and see that Loman has sent me a text message: M wants to know how people can possibly endure air travel.
As usual, he spells and punctuates everything perfectly.
