Read Online The Last Will of Moira Leahy by Therese Walsh - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Therese Walsh
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that—whiplash—the semester was over. This always brought on a mild case of the blues, probably because I had a like-hate relationship with free time. I forced myself to lie on the couch and watch two hours of TV that first weekend night—a behavior that felt more foreign than any language I taught.
Sleep became more difficult, too. Sunday night was particularly bad; apprehension swelled in the back of my throat like a beached whale. Sometime around 1:00 a.m., the phone rang.
“Dad?” I waited a beat. “Mom? Is it you?”
No answer, but I knew someone was there. Long seconds passed before the line went dead.
I wouldn’t think about Ian. I wouldn’t eling .
I went back to bed, and tried to relax my muscles and my mind, sleep. I imagined her so clearly, though. Moira in the grass with her keyboard, chewing the end of her ponytail. Gliding her fingers through sun-cooked water on the seat of our boat as we planned our future.
I tried to picture my saxophone, my fingers over its cold neck, but just as I managed it, it turned into Noel’s warm one. My second attempt was no better: I stood naked in a field of brown grass with my sax, blowing soundlessly through the mouthpiece. Noel was there, too, fully clothed and flipping through his passport. I threw down my saxophone and covered my chest when he looked at me. They all changed into something … other. Noel, the sax, and the passport grew forked tongues and coiled at my feet. I ran away, blades of dead grass catching between my toes, but I knew it was only a matter of time before one of them caught me.
Out of Time
Castine, Maine
NOVEMBER 1995
Moira and Maeve are eleven
Moira woke in the middle of the night, though she didn’t understand why right away.
“It’s happening.” Maeve was sitting upright in bed.
Moira sat, too. “What’s wrong? Poppy?”
Their mother’s howl splintered the night.
“No, Moira, don’t—”
But Moira leaped up and ran to her parents’ room. Mama writhed in their bed, and Daddy had his arms braced over her, his face close to hers.
“Oh, sweetheart.” He made a noise—sibilant—a let of air. “Honey, it’s all right.”
“Oh, God!” Mama howled again. “Jack, no!”
Moira felt a tug on her arm and looked back at her sister.
“Come away.”
“No.” Moira spied the crimson stain on the sheet, watched, rapt and frightened as it spread, ate up the white. “No.”
The baby was lost.
CHAPTER FIVE
SIGMUND’S SECRETS
I wove my way down the familiar halls of Time After Time until I stood before a closed entry. I cracked the door, hoping to see Noel absorbed in his work. Instead of finding him as I often had—at an easel, barefoot on bleached tarps beside the long bank of windows—I discovered him asleep on his bench, slumped over a table streaked with colored paint and heaped with old palettes, tools and glues, an assortment of pigments. A sketchpad sat open beside him, and his fingers barely held to a teetering pencil.
I stepped inside. Every barrier I’d erected toward the opposite sex, toward Noel, sighed away as if napping was the order of the day. A beautiful man, asleep and unaware. My eyes wandered over him like an eager adventurer. I scaled a cheekbone, skied his nose, and glided over the curve of a full bottom lip. I ran wild through a thatch of black hair, then lay in the hammock of his ear, the pinna, the little wing. I moved closer. Slid down his neck and loped across one broad shoulder and the curved part of his back. Dallied over a length of bare arm and lingered for ages on a hand—what gorgeous skin he had, how strong his musculature, how long his fingers.
Then the fingers moved, and my reverie shattered. His eyes opened and fixed on mine. He lifted his head slowly.
“I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I never should have—” I spun around and faced a windowless wall, like I’d caught him naked or something. I repressed the urge to walk to a corner and press my nose into its seam.
Sleep became more difficult, too. Sunday night was particularly bad; apprehension swelled in the back of my throat like a beached whale. Sometime around 1:00 a.m., the phone rang.
“Dad?” I waited a beat. “Mom? Is it you?”
No answer, but I knew someone was there. Long seconds passed before the line went dead.
I wouldn’t think about Ian. I wouldn’t eling .
I went back to bed, and tried to relax my muscles and my mind, sleep. I imagined her so clearly, though. Moira in the grass with her keyboard, chewing the end of her ponytail. Gliding her fingers through sun-cooked water on the seat of our boat as we planned our future.
I tried to picture my saxophone, my fingers over its cold neck, but just as I managed it, it turned into Noel’s warm one. My second attempt was no better: I stood naked in a field of brown grass with my sax, blowing soundlessly through the mouthpiece. Noel was there, too, fully clothed and flipping through his passport. I threw down my saxophone and covered my chest when he looked at me. They all changed into something … other. Noel, the sax, and the passport grew forked tongues and coiled at my feet. I ran away, blades of dead grass catching between my toes, but I knew it was only a matter of time before one of them caught me.
Out of Time
Castine, Maine
NOVEMBER 1995
Moira and Maeve are eleven
Moira woke in the middle of the night, though she didn’t understand why right away.
“It’s happening.” Maeve was sitting upright in bed.
Moira sat, too. “What’s wrong? Poppy?”
Their mother’s howl splintered the night.
“No, Moira, don’t—”
But Moira leaped up and ran to her parents’ room. Mama writhed in their bed, and Daddy had his arms braced over her, his face close to hers.
“Oh, sweetheart.” He made a noise—sibilant—a let of air. “Honey, it’s all right.”
“Oh, God!” Mama howled again. “Jack, no!”
Moira felt a tug on her arm and looked back at her sister.
“Come away.”
“No.” Moira spied the crimson stain on the sheet, watched, rapt and frightened as it spread, ate up the white. “No.”
The baby was lost.
CHAPTER FIVE
SIGMUND’S SECRETS
I wove my way down the familiar halls of Time After Time until I stood before a closed entry. I cracked the door, hoping to see Noel absorbed in his work. Instead of finding him as I often had—at an easel, barefoot on bleached tarps beside the long bank of windows—I discovered him asleep on his bench, slumped over a table streaked with colored paint and heaped with old palettes, tools and glues, an assortment of pigments. A sketchpad sat open beside him, and his fingers barely held to a teetering pencil.
I stepped inside. Every barrier I’d erected toward the opposite sex, toward Noel, sighed away as if napping was the order of the day. A beautiful man, asleep and unaware. My eyes wandered over him like an eager adventurer. I scaled a cheekbone, skied his nose, and glided over the curve of a full bottom lip. I ran wild through a thatch of black hair, then lay in the hammock of his ear, the pinna, the little wing. I moved closer. Slid down his neck and loped across one broad shoulder and the curved part of his back. Dallied over a length of bare arm and lingered for ages on a hand—what gorgeous skin he had, how strong his musculature, how long his fingers.
Then the fingers moved, and my reverie shattered. His eyes opened and fixed on mine. He lifted his head slowly.
“I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I never should have—” I spun around and faced a windowless wall, like I’d caught him naked or something. I repressed the urge to walk to a corner and press my nose into its seam.
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