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One of the first things he does, after they get back to Maynooth, is go to the church.
A good part of their honeymoon has been spent around graveyards. Well, maybe not a good part, but certainly more than the average honeymoon. On the day after they married, before they set out for Sligo, they visited the graveyard in Laraghbryan, where Christine’s parents lie. They bring two flowers from her bouquet, and a little snip of ribbon to tie them together, and sets them down before the stone that bears their names.
Freyja and Josef Daaé.
It is not the first time he has been with her, when she has come to visit. It would not even be the first time he has come alone. (He has come here several times, including after he proposed to her.) But there is something sacred about being here today, something sacred about this first visit as a married couple, and he draws her a little closer, and kisses her hair, and if there are tears damp on her cheeks he does not say a word. They match the ones prickling in the backs of his eyes.
The second grave they visit is his father’s, the next day, in the quiet country graveyard where he lies in Sligo. No cars, no noise of people, just the soft breeze and rustling of leaves, the birds twittering gentle in the trees. Just the birds and the trees, and he has no clear memory of his father, but he feels it is all he would want.
Christine twines her fingers tight with his, and leans into him, and as he looks down at the headstone that bears the name Andrew James Delafontaine, and two dates barely twenty-nine years apart, it hits him, not for the first time, that he is already older than his father was when he died. Already older, and does that mean his time to love Christine is spun short? Or does it mean, instead, that he has a lifetime more to hold her?
(Who decreed that he should live longer than his Dad? Why could his Dad not have had some of these extra years? Why did he have to die, so quick, no time for goodbyes?)
He has wondered on it a lot, wondered on it even more since his surgery in the spring, the surgery that saved him from being torn away like his dad was. And he decides, here and now, Christine’s hand in his, their marriage only two days old, that he is going to stop thinking on it. To stop thinking on it, and make sure to enjoy each day twice as much, for as long as they both shall live.
(The third graveyard they visit holds no one that belongs to either of them, but it is high overlooking the Atlantic, not too far from a little cottage, and it does hold two people who loved each other for more than sixty years, and it does feel a little like grabbing at blessings, and he has thought it before, but if he gets even half as long to love Christine, it won’t be enough but it will be more, and just to have more is what his heart desires.)
(He does not know it now, has no way of knowing it, but he will have thirty years more, and then some.)
He thinks of the three graveyards and overlooking the ocean composes music to the occupants of each, and to himself and Christine, and feels it a fitting tribute. And when, at last, they are back in Maynooth weeks later, it feels only right, that for a marriage begun with a church, and with so many sacred spaces in its early weeks, that he should mark the end of this first phase of it with another visit to a church.
He kisses Christine on the forehead, tells her he’s going for a walk, and leaves her to her reading.
It is not that he is a religious man. His relationship with the Almighty was irreparably broken at the age of eight when he looked around and realized that all the other boys making their First Communion had a Dad, or at least had a Dad living somewhere, and he was the little odd one out.
But there is something peaceful about churches, something soft and quiet, and he might not quite know where he stands with belief and religion but he does know that this is what matters behind it all. These quiet, peaceful places. To sit, and to think.
He drops sixty cents in the box and lights three candles, for his father and Christine’s mother and father and settles in a pew. His memory is a little short on prayers, beyond the Hail Mary and the Ár nAthair, but he folds his hands, and bows his head, and closes his eyes, and breathes. Just breathes. Feels the air fill him, that gentleness and quiet. And he does not let himself think of death, but he does think of Christine, and how it feels to hold her close, her head on his chest, how it feels to curl his fingers in her hair, how it feels to kiss her, how her voice is soft in his hair and how his heart stutters, still, every time she tells him she loves him. How frightened she was, how frightened they both were, before his surgery, how she kissed every inch of his face when she first saw him afterwards and he was too groggy to lift his head, too groggy to do more than twine his fingers with hers and feebly try to kiss her back, but it didn’t matter because she was there and he was alive. And he thinks of her, and all that she is, and how they danced, slowly, around the kitchen to ‘Funeral Suit’, and he would do that every night with her for the rest of their lives.
He sits there, and thinks, and when his love for her swells with such that he can’t stand being away from her for a moment longer, that is when he sighs, and opens his eyes, and knows it is time to return to her side.
He hates leaving Dublin, that night. Hates leaving Christine behind in the hospital, hates leaving their tiny baby girl. He knows it’s for the best, knows they all need to rest, but he just wants to sit there with them, to sit there and hold her hand and stroke her hair, and look down into the crib that holds the tiniest most precious baby he has ever seen in his life.
Their little girl. They don’t even have a name for her, because they never spoke of names, fearing it bad luck. Her tiny little wristband reads Baby Girl Delafontaine, and it sent a thrill through him to see it, to see his name there. That she is his, that his blood has made her, his and Christine’s together.
He thinks of the Heaney exhibition in the old Bank of Ireland, that he and Christine went to, once upon a time, before she ever went to Portugal. (A day of jaunting around Dublin, of natural history and archaeology and the National Gallery and the NLI, and they left John Henry in the Dáil, and after he came out he didn’t speak for two days.) The Heaney exhibition, and the little piece called ‘Catherine’s Poem’, of something the great man’s daughter had said.
“And didn’t you and mammy make me
And God made the thread?”
Catherine would be a nice name for a little girl, Cathy for short. Or Cate, but they already know a Kate, and Cat feels like she might be made fun of, and he would never inflict that on her. Unless Cáit, but he has never been a fan of Cáit.
Nadir doesn’t say a word, but he doesn’t need to. It’s enough to have him here, enough to have him silent beside him, his quiet steadying presence, how he has always been.
“You can stay with us tonight, if you want.” The offer is quietly spoken, when they are almost back in Maynooth, Nadir’s eyes soft turned to him, but Erik shakes his head. It’s good of him to offer, good of him to give him the option, but to be alone is the best thing for him tonight. To be alone and curl up, and think of Christine and their baby girl and sleep.
It is good enough of Nadir to drive him home. He would never ask for anything more than that.
“I’m all right,” he croaks, and his voice is hoarse from so long without speaking. He doesn’t think he’s uttered a word since he hugged Nadir outside the hospital. “Afraid I’m not the best company just now.”
Nadir smiles. “With good reason, too.” He swallows. “The offer stands, if you change your mind.”
It’s a long way from last night, when they rushed out the door, when he couldn’t settle the whole way to the hospital, Christine squeezing his hand hard with each contraction. He smiles at his oldest and dearest friend. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
They pull up outside the house, and Nadir turns to him and hugs him again. “I’m so happy for you, you know.” And his voice is hoarse. “So happy. I couldn’t think of two nicer people—she’s lovely.”
He’s too choked up to say anything back, the tears blurring his vision again, so he nods into Nadir’s shoulder and releases him.
There are tears in Nadir’s eyes too, and he doesn’t know what possesses him, but he laughs, and then Nadir laughs too, both of them laughing and crying there in the car, and he opens the door, and steps out, and Nadir grins at him out the window, face still damp with tears, and drives out onto the road.
Erik stands a long time, watching the taillights glowing red in the darkness as he disappears, the chill night air of early February soaking into his bones. He draws his coat tighter around himself, and wipes the tears from his face, and sighs.
He already knows he’s not going into the house, that he can’t bear to, not just yet. The library would still be open, warm and bright and full of students but the thought of going up to there makes him shiver. There is the church, of course.
The church.
A laugh bubbles up within him. For a non-religious man he finds himself going to the church after big events surprisingly often.
The streetlights cast an orange glow through the misty drizzle, the concrete dark with wet. Not the nicest of nights, but here and now, to his eyes, it’s perfect.
There is music already in his heart, odd notes taking shape, the first piece for the new little life, so freshly come into the world. To think he had not wanted the baby, to think he had panicked, and now she is here and though it has only been a few hours he cannot imagine a world without her in it,
Is she still asleep? Or has she woken and is Christine, even now, holding her close and marveling at this tiny little miracle they have made?
She has a whole face, a perfect little face and a little button nose, and it doesn’t matter if she has his condition, doesn’t matter because he’ll love her just the same and he’ll never let anything happen to her, never let her be afraid. Fear and worry are his job, hand-in-hand with love, and he’ll never let her have to know them, so help him.
The church is quiet when he makes it to its doors, the candles guttering low. The same church where he married Christine, the same church he came and sat in after their honeymoon. And he goes straight to the candles now, and drops his twenty cent coin in the box, and thinking of his baby girl, thinking of her sweet face and her tiny fingers curled around one of his, he lights a candle to her.
He’s not sure what he believes, but he wants to believe in something. For her, if for nothing else. Just for her.
Clíodhna is staying with Nadir and Michelle for the night, and maybe for a few nights until Christine and the baby are home. He told Nadir he didn’t want to wake her, and Nadir still frowned at him with concern, until he smiled and promised that he felt all right.
“I might even stay with Lilly,” he said, and it wasn’t quite true but Nadir believed him. He almost felt bad for lying, and maybe he would stay with Lilly, but he just wants to be alone. To be alone, not even to think, just to be.
He’s too tired to think, tired to his bones and all cried out, but he knows he won’t be able to sleep, not yet.
His feet carry him to the church, just like before. This time the walk leaves him a little breathless, reminds him that he is still not recovered, that he still needs to rest and it has been a long day. And maybe he would rest but he has a new baby son, a tiny little boy and all he wants to do is cradle him close, and never let him go.
He finds change in his pocket, drops the coins into the box and lights a candle to the little baby whose fingers he can still feel wrapped around his own.
This time they already have a name decided on.
Andriú Erik.
For his father, and for him.
He objected to the idea, when Christine suggested it, Andriú freshly cleaned up and nestled in her arms. If they were to name him after his father, he said, the they should name him after her father too. Josef Andriú, or Andriú Josef. But she looked up at him, with the tears in her eyes, after her ordeal, after everything, and whispered, “I almost lost you,” and the words cut him to the core, a pain that tore through his heart, so that he almost didn’t hear her follow-up, “I want him to have your name.”
How could he object to that? How could he say anything to that? He almost died. Almost died and left her alone with Clíodhna and the baby he hadn’t known she was expecting, that she had barely known about, and yes it’s almost eight months ago, but that doesn’t make what happened any less real.
(He remembers very little of that day. Remembers the pain high between his shoulders, and how it tore through him and how it was so hard to breathe and all he wanted was Christine and Nadir was telling him that it was all right, that he was going to be all right, but he couldn’t believe it and he knew Nadir didn’t believe it either, and he was so glad Clíodhna wasn’t there to see him. Then there is a great span of blankness in his head, punctuated by indistinct images and words, until a week later and Christine’s face was so pale, and there were tears in her eyes to see him awake. But his heart had stopped beating for three minutes, his heart had stopped beating, from the strain and all the blood he had lost with his dissected aorta, and even now his heart skips beats it never skipped before, as if it remembers when it had stopped working at all.)
She wants to name their son after him, and so help him but he cannot do anything to upset her now. Not after all the worry he’s put on her, and that worry must be the reason that Andriú came early. Two weeks early, and he’s healthy (thank God, or any other deity there may be) but early nonetheless, and he’s tiny and perfect, tinier even than Clíodhna was, but it could have been so different. They could have lost him, could have lost him and it would have been because of him and how would he ever have lived with himself?
Tears prickle his eyes, and he blinks them away. He has no need to cry. Why should he cry? His son is well, and he is alive, and Clíodhna has a bigger family now, not a smaller one, and he already loves his tiny little boy so much, his heart is already swelling with feeling and a fierce ache to hold him again. And he’s lucky, he’s so bloody lucky, even tonight there must be fathers sitting in churches not half as lucky as he is. They’re the ones with the right to cry, not him.
Footsteps, echoing through the empty church, and he shakes himself and brushes the tears away, lest someone think something terrible has happened, when he must surely be the luckiest man in the world.
A face materializes out of the darkness, pale but smiling, dark hair slicked back and a black tie with white dots, a heavy wool coat. John Henry. John Henry? But he was down in Wicklow today, was due to be there for the next two days, filming his TB documentary and staying in complementary accommodation to save traveling, and Erik knows because he rang him from the hospital to tell him the news, and John Henry could barely speak when he heard everything was all right.
Erik shifts over in the seat, just a little, and Johnry steps in and sits beside him.
“I came to light a candle for my new godson,” he says with that slightly crooked smile, “told them there was a family matter, and I’d be back in a few days.”
(“A family matter,” he said in the hospital, all those months ago, the first time he visited since Erik had come back to himself. “Left as soon as I heard the news.” His voice was softer than Erik had ever heard it, his eyes bloodshot and rimmed red. And it hurt Erik to speak, hurt his throat and hurt his chest and his damaged ribs and his head was still all fogged up so that he couldn’t quite think where Johnry had been, but he whispered, “won’t have to…dust off Auden yet,” and though his eyes were only half-open, though the world was blurred and he was so tired, he saw the tears that trickled down John Henry’s cheeks, and his murmured, “don’t joke about that” took his breath away.)
“You shouldn’t have to be alone tonight.” John Henry’s voice is almost as soft now as it was that day in the hospital, and his hand is light on Erik’s.
He opens his mouth to protest, to say that he wants to be alone, but Johnry shakes his head. “You don’t though, not really. You want to be with her, and with little Andriú,” (and Erik’s heart leaps to hear the name off someone else’s tongue, that little whisper of he’s real) “and I know I’m a poor substitute,” and Johnry’s voice is still soft, but his smile has some of that old cheek, “but what’s a little spooning between old friends?”
Erik’s eyes water again and he nods, nods because John Henry is right, because there is an ache in his chest that he can’t name and a hollow he can’t fill until he can hold Christine again and cradle Andriú close, and he squeezes John Henry’s hand back, and whispers, “Thank you.”
John Henry pulls him close and he tucks his head in against his shoulder, and closes his eyes, and Johnry’s fingers are gentle in his hair, his arms warm and safe around him, and it’s easier to breathe, easier to breathe and easier to feel and he is not so scattered, not so lost.
“I’m so happy for you,” Johnry’s voice is groggy in his ear, “so happy.”
This time, Christine comes with him to the church.
They have already been to the hospital. They had not wanted to impose, knowing how exhausted Carina would be after her ordeal, but they knew by the sound of Clíodhna’s voice on the phone that she wanted them there, wanted them to meet the twins.
Their grandchildren.
He never thought he would live long enough to see grandchildren.
A little boy and a little girl, Alistair and Louisa.
(Uncle Al cried, apparently, when Clíodhna rang him with the news that she was naming his great grandnephew after him. And Erik is torn between staying where he is, and going to Dublin to hold the babies again, and going to Sligo to hug the man who is the closest thing he’s ever known to a father.)
He had forgotten how small new babies can be.
If he closes his eyes, it feels like only yesterday that he sat here after holding Clíodhna herself for the first time. But now she is a mother, and Andriú is on his way to being a doctor, and where did the time go? Why can he not turn it back and hold them again as they were? Lie back in his recliner, with the sling that cradled each of them to his chest when they were the tiniest babies, that meant he could work and still hold them, still kiss their little foreheads, and whisper to them when they woke.
But they’re grown up. Both of his babies are grown up, and having babies of their own now.
Little Louisa and Little Alistair. And he held them close and kissed their fingers and promised they would never want for anything. And if he was crying, then no one said anything.
They must be used to his tears by now.
Christine leans into him, and squeezes his fingers and he kisses her hair.
A grandfather. He’s a grandfather. Whoever let that happen?
“I can’t believe it’s real,” she whispers, her voice so low he almost doesn’t hear her, and he presses himself closer, and sighs.
“Neither can I,” he breathes.