“Did he talk about me?” he asked. “When he was dying, I mean? Did he mention my name?”
I felt the tears form in my eyes now too. “Are you kidding me?” I asked. “Liam, you were the son he never had. He talked about you all the time at the end. He wanted you there but he didn’t want you to see him as he was. He loved you so much. You were the most important person in his life.”
He lifted his bottle. “To Julian,” he said, smiling.
It took me a moment, but I lifted my bottle too. “To Julian,” I said quietly.
And to this day, I don’t know which Julian we were each toasting, Liam’s beloved uncle or his newly born son.
A Little Hunchbacked Redemptorist Nun
As I made my way back toward the ground floor, my phone rang and I glanced at the screen, knowing exactly what it would say: Alice.
“You have one hour,” she said without any preamble when I answered.
“I’m leaving now.”
“One hour and then I lock the doors.”
“I’m literally walking out of the hospital as we speak.”
“The twins are asking where you are.”
“Which twins?”
“Both sets.”
“Impossible,” I said. “One set are only babies. They can’t even speak, let alone question my whereabouts.”
“Just be here,” said Alice. “And stop annoying me.”
“How’s Cyril II? Is he cracking under the pressure of cooking for so many people?”
“Fifty-eight minutes and counting.”
“I’m on my way.”
I hung up and made my way toward the exit but the sound of weeping coming from behind a set of doors to my left gave me pause. I glanced over to where the doors to the chapel were ajar. The room inside seemed so different from the rest of the hospital—the clinical white walls replaced by something warmer and far more inviting—that I found myself moved to take a closer look.
There was only one person inside, an elderly lady seated at the end of a pew halfway toward the altar. Classical music was playing softly, a piece I half recognized, and the door to one of the confessionals was open. I watched the woman for a few moments, uncertain whether I should walk away and leave her to her sorrow or see whether she needed some help. Eventually, my feet made the decision for me but as I stepped closer, my eyes opened wide in surprise at who she was.
“Mrs. Goggin,” I said. “It’s Mrs. Goggin, isn’t it?”
She looked across at me as if woken from a dream and stared at me for a few moments, her face pale. “Kenneth?” she said.
“No, it’s Cyril Avery, Mrs. Goggin,” I said. “From the Dáil library.”
“Oh, Cyril,” she said, nodding her head and putting her hand to her chest as if she was afraid she might be having a heart attack. “Of course. I’m sorry; I took you for someone else. How are you, dear?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “It must be years since I saw you last.”
“Is it that long?”
“Yes, it was at your retirement party.”
“Oh yes,” she said quietly.
“But what’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you all right?”
“I’m not, no,” she replied. “Not really.”
“Is there something I can do for you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think so,” she said. “But thank you anyway.”
I glanced around, hoping that one of her family members might be nearby and come in to help but the chapel was silent and the doors had closed shut behind me.
“Do you mind if I sit down for a few minutes?”
She took a long time to decide but finally nodded her head, moving over a little in the pew to let me join her.
“What’s happened, Mrs. Goggin?” I asked. “What has you so upset?”
“My son is dead,” she said quietly.
“Oh no. Jonathan?”
“A couple of hours ago now. I’ve been sitting here ever since.”
“Mrs. Goggin, I’m so sorry.”
“We knew it was coming,” she told me with a sigh. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Had he been ill for long?” I asked, reaching across and taking her hand in mine. Her skin felt paper-thin and there were dark-blue veins running toward her knuckles.
“On and off,” she said. “He had cancer, you see. He first developed it about fifteen years ago, but he managed to beat it then. Unfortunately, it came back late last year. Six months ago, the doctors told us there was nothing more that they could do for him. And today was the day.”
“I hope he didn’t suffer too much.”
“He did,” she said. “But he was very stoical about it. It’s those of us who are left behind who’ll have to suffer now.”
“Would you like me to leave you on your own or is there someone I can call for you?”
She thought about it and dabbed the corners of her eyes with her handkerchief. “No,” she said. “Can you stay a little while? If you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind at all,” I told her.
“You don’t have anywhere to be?”
“I do. But it won’t matter if I’m a few minutes late. But is there anyone from your family here to take care of you? You’re not all alone, surely?”
“I don’t need taking care of,” she said defiantly. “I might be old, but you have no idea the strength that’s left in this body.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “But you’re not going home to an empty house, are you?”
“No. My daughter-in-law was here earlier with my grandchildren. They’ve gone home now. I’ll follow shortly.”
“All right,” I said, remembering the woman and the two little girls whom I’d seen wrapped in each other’s embrace earlier when I’d first arrived at the hospital. “I think I noticed them in the corridor upstairs a couple of hours ago.”
“You might have done. They were here all night. Well, we all were. A terrible way for children to spend Christmas Eve. They should be waiting for Santa Claus, not watching their daddy die.”
“I don’t know what to say to you,” I said, looking toward the front of the church where a large wooden cross holding the crucified Christ stood on a wall, looking down at us in all his pity. “Are you religious?” I asked. “Do you find some peace in here at least?”
“I’m not really,” she said. “I have some sort of relationship with God, I suppose, but I had a bad time with the Church when I was a girl. Why, are you?”
I shook my head. “Not even slightly.”
“I don’t even know why I came in here, to be honest. I was just passing, that was all, and it looked quiet. I needed somewhere to sit, that’s all. The Church was never a friend to me. I’ve always felt that the Catholic Church has the same relationship to God as a fish has to a bicycle.”
I smiled. “I feel the same way,” I said.
“I don’t even come into churches very often. Except for weddings and christenings and funerals. More than fifty years ago, a priest picked me up by the hair and threw me out of my parish church and I haven’t had much time for it since. But I should have asked you why you’re here,” she added, turning to look at me. “Something must be wrong if you’re in a hospital on Christmas Day.”
“No, it’s not nothing like that. My son and his wife had a baby boy earlier today. I came in to see him, that’s all.”
“Oh, well that’s good news at least,” she said, forcing a smile. “Do they have a name for him yet?”