The Heart of the Matter

By Mary Walsh Foley

Stella rose at six. Walking through the dewy fields, she keenly felt her parents’ presence.  The sky was streaked mauve and grey. She heard a bird rustling in the brambles and a snipe flew up from the long grass. The horizon was shrouded in a thin veil of fog.  Running in and out of the fairy fort, the rabbits were safe in their unholy refuge. 

After breakfast, Stella sifted through her mother’s belongings. She took out a rusted biscuit tin from the top shelf of her mother’s wardrobe. It was full of the mortuary cards of relatives, neighbours and friends. She spilled them out onto the bedspread. The bottom of the tin was covered with a square of patterned wallpaper. She peeled it back and discovered two faded envelopes underneath it. One was in her mother’s distinctive cursive writing and the other was written in block letters, addressed to her mother. She opened the one with the writing she didn’t recognise.

Dear Lizzie,

It was with a heavy heart that I learned that you had left to marry someone else. I know that I wasn’t good enough for your father because I didn’t own land. I just wanted to say goodbye since we never got a chance to say it in person. I wish you all the best. 

Paddy.  

Her daughter carefully removed the second letter, written in her mother’s hand.

Dear Paddy,

Thank you for your letter. I had to do what my father told me, I hope you understand. I want to try to make the best of it here. I hope that you meet someone nice, you deserve it. Please don’t write again.

Lizzie.

The following week Stella put the address into Google maps and followed its directions to the neighbouring parish where her mother had been born and reared. It brought her to a disused cottage covered in brambles and tea roses. There was a new bungalow built nearby. Tentatively, she knocked at the door, unsure of what she would even say if Paddy was inside. A middle aged man opened the door, his frame filling the doorway. 

“Hello?” his wrinkles disappeared with the broad smile.

Stella fumbled with the strap of her tan leather bag. 

“Oh hello, I’m just wondering if Paddy O Shea lives here.”

“He does, I’m his son, Pat”, he nodded, extending his hand.

Stella felt the strong grip of his big palm and felt a little more assured. He gestured her to come into the cosy kitchen. A frail man with paper thin mottled skin sat in an armchair at one side of the stove, his feet peeping out in cosy slippers from under a tartan blanket wrapped around his legs. He was hunched over and had to raise his head to look at her. His eyes were coated with a thin film but he extended his hand as she approached.

“Hello Paddy, my name is Stella O Keefe, I’m Lizzy Keane’s daughter. You and Lizzie were friends once?”

He held on to her hand and she could see his mind travelling back to his youth.

“Lizzie, Lizzie, myself and Lizzie were great companions. She was a lady. How is she? “

Tears welled up in Stella’s eyes, she was still finding it difficult to believe the fact that her mother had passed, her mother who had always been at home, her mother who had unfailingly taken her side and who had repeatedly talked her up to all the neighbours. 

“She passed away Paddy a month ago”, she said, her lip trembling.

“Ah a leanbh, that’s the way. When the Good Lord calls we have to answer, that’s the way”.

Stella pulled the two letters from her bag and handed them to Paddy. His son explained that his father’s sight was poorly and would she mind if he read them aloud to him. She nodded.

Gently taking the letters from his father’s hand, he began to read. His father looked away as he heard the words that he had written long ago but had never forgotten. When his son read Lizzie’s letter, the old man responded with a smile.

“A million thanks leanbh for bringing that letter to me today. I always wondered if she had ever even gotten my letter. I know now that she felt the same way about me and that it was her father who came between us. That was the way back then.”

He looked from Pat to Stella and smiled,

“We both did alright in the end.”  

His son insisted on her staying for a cup of tea in light of the fact that she had brightened his father’s day. She took off her coat and put it on the back of the other armchair placing her handbag at her feet. She accepted the mug and when Pat pulled his chair up beside her, she was glad that she had followed her hunch. She stayed for an hour and secretly marvelled at Pat’s patience with his father, repeating himself several times so as to include his father in the conversation. 

When she got up to leave, she held his father’s warm hand and smiled when he said,

“Lizzie’s daughter will always be welcome here “. 

Pat helped her with her coat and thanked her again for taking the time to deliver the letter and for making his father so happy. He suggested that they exchange numbers. On her way home she recalled how others had talked about a sign from their loved ones when they had passed, some spoke of robins or butterflies and she had never given any weight to such beliefs until now. She decided to call the graveyard. Standing in front of her parents’ grave she silently thanked her mother for not leaving her alone and for watching out for her. As she stood there her phone pinged, 

“Stella, thank you for today. It was great to chat. Be sure to call again soon. Pat”

Mary Walsh Foley is a member of the Write Liners creative writing group. She has been published in Confetti, Ireland’s Own and Ireland’s Eye. She was awarded second place in the Maurice Walsh short story competition.