Land of Bones and Tears

Chapter Two

Pittsburgh, New Beginnings

I was already cranky by the time I arrived in Pittsburgh.  I left it to English to make the arrangements for me to get to the states; I concentrated on getting word to Granddad (telegraph, which was pretty much one step removed from smoke signals if you ask me, but what do you do if a man refuses to learn how to use a computer?), so I was glad to let him handle the details for my travel to get here. Of course, Linton has his own quiet way of paying a man back for little tricks along the way. You think he’s forgotten but he never does, he just waits, patiently.

Which is how I ended up flying the eight hours from Scotland in first class accommodations – no problem there – but with my cover being that of a blind man, of all things and Vasha the world’s worst service dog.  Just when we were about to reach the airport in Edinburgh, I thought to ask him how he arranged for Vasha to fly with me, expecting him to say that I’d be on a military transport, maybe sharing flying duties. I forgot how protective he was of Luke’s and my down time. He always wanted us to have at least forty-eight hours without flying after a long flight. We tried to humor him, but the reality was, during our younger years, we’d be lucky to get four hours rest between flights.

He’d handed me a pair of sunglasses and a red-tipped cane.  “I’ve made all the arrangements you need. The airline attendant is expecting you and will take care of all your needs. Vasha will be permitted to stay by your side, though perhaps you could get her to act a bit...helpful?”

Luke couldn’t hold in his laughter any longer. I could tell by his reaction, which was really excessive, that he must have been holding it in for some time. I’d turned to him and said in my most pleasant tone, “Laugh while you can, Irish. I’ll being taking my revenge out on you.”

“I’d never dream of taking advantage of a man with impaired vision,” Luke answered piously.

“Consider it an Alliance training exercise, refreshing your undercover skills,” Linton suggested, with just enough seriousness in his tone to make me think he might mean it. Training exercise was military for test. Which was bullshit, I could do undercover with the best of them. But....technically, Linton was currently one of the top people if not the top person in the Alliance so I was conscious of a need to pass his stupid test and not reveal myself as a sighted person. Which is harder than you might think.

The flight was hell. The stewardess was an extremely attractive blonde, which of course I couldn’t reveal I knew, and Vasha was well-behaved. Too well-behaved. She slept far too much, which I would have said was not like her only nowadays, it seemed it was like her. I was going to have to get her checked out by a top-notch vet. That was something I’d be able to get done in Montana, though I toyed with the idea of having her checked in Pittsburgh if Doug didn’t have a plane ready for me when I landed.

Anyway, eight hours of having my meat cut for me, being offered newspapers in Braille, and generally treated like I was ten – did people think losing sight meant a person lost IQ points? – I was glad to be able to toss the cane and exchange the sunglasses for my own pair of mirrored aviators when we were through customs and security. Being conscious of English’s “training exercise” comment, I figured I’d better not risk being seen walking through the airport sighted.  I pulled my hair back into a tight braid. I’d been wearing it down since I’d been in civilian gear. But now that I was changing into fatigues, I figured I’d look a little bit more regulation.

I looked at myself in the mirror. A soldier looked back at me.  Vasha barked.

“Yeah girl, I know. You’re not fond of camouflage, especially this new style, are you? Can’t say I am either.  We’ll be shucking it fast enough. As soon as we get out of this airport and off on our own. But for now, I’ll be a tough soldier and you, you put on your best attitude, stare down anyone who looks twice at you like the wild wolfhound that you are.”

In our new guise we strolled right past the sweet little stewardess who insisted on practically spooning my food into me. Before this trip I would have said I liked an attentive woman but she convinced me I would never be able to stand someone who wanted to mother me.  

Pulling up in front of Mary Frances O’Keefe’s house, I wondered how to explain myself. I hoped that Luke had made the necessary call to his sister to explain his brilliant idea that I take one of her precious daughters away from the safety of home to do good works in the relative wilds of Montana. It would be just like him to wait until I got here and leave it to me to explain.

Which I would do if I had to, but first I’d had to locate Mary Fran’s place, which proved pretty easy. It was a typical O’Keefe issue house, large and sprawling with several cars in front and sports equipment and bikes littering the lawn. Also, there was a typical O’Keefe issue family dispute of sorts that needed attention before I could get back on the road. A large, broad young guy, also typical O’Keefe issue, was roughly shaking a girl who looked like she could be one of those twins we rescued down in Haiti. That was bad enough, but this altercation was taking place on the damn roof of the house. Sometimes I think the whole damn O’Keefe family is lacking in common sense.

I whistled to get their attention. It didn’t work. Didn’t really expect it to but I was still a bit stiff from the long flight and really didn’t want to climb up on that roof and deliver a whupping to the guy roughing up a girl. But we don’t always get what we want, which is a saying Luke used to be fond of telling us back when he was a captain in charge of the squad of which I was a lowly lieutenant. 

Damn typical O’Keefes.

**********

I was furious at Riley.  I’d been patching the roof where it was leaking into my bedroom – something he’d promised to do months ago and never did of course. Now that I was taking care of it myself, little brother decides to play the big man and interfere.  Something about being the middle of six kids made Riley feel he had to make a lot of noise to get noticed. Couldn’t blame him really, not completely at least. Liam, Jr. and Keir were always going to be older and bigger, and being identical twins at their size really made an impression. Quinn was the baby and he played that role to perfection. Even Uncle Danny said he reminded him of him, which was saying something. And there was no getting around it, Colette and I were like Liam and Keir in female form. Pure attention getting.  Riley was a good boy at heart, but sometimes he had a difficult time letting it show. I totally understood that he felt he had to have some kind of theme to make himself stand out in the crowd of us O’Keefe-Lennons.

But did Riley have to choose loud mouthed bully for his theme?  I pulled my arm free, but not without difficulty, damn testosterone and little brothers who grow to be six and a half feet tall while still in high school.

“You belong down on the ground, Colleen,” he blustered, shoving me.  Which wouldn’t normally be a problem, except I stepped back on my bad leg.

Not a good move. Memo to self. Don’t fight with little brothers when on a roof thirty feet above ground. For this type of insight, I am paying student loans on a doctorate in social work. Mama Rose used to warn that all that college would drain away my common sense. Then again, she wasn’t a big believer in college for girls.

Time slows when you’re falling to your death. I was off the edge of the  roof on my way to the ground and I hadn’t even gotten to the “life passing before my eyes” part. Just some random thoughts and whump. I was jerked up by one arm and slammed against a brick wall.

Or so it felt. I closed my eyes and went limp, my innate reaction when extreme terror is removed. One lesson I had taken to heart from Mama Rose, though Colette and I could never do it as well as some of our less robust looking girl cousins, was to never underestimate the value of a good swoon. At the moment it was certainly the best way to enjoy hearing Riley reamed out in fine fashion. My rescuer was doing a better job of it than my Uncle Matt could – all the shame inducing power at twice the volume. Sounded like a drill sergeant. With arms like warm...the cliche would be to say steel but muscle doesn’t ever seem like steel to me. Nor is it like rock, or any of those other analogies. Warm, firm, muscle. That just happened to feel like brick if you got slammed into it. A nice place to swoon and enjoy the reaming of one’s bratty brother. But eventually he wound it down – after a good five minutes of profanity laced haranguing – with a final few words, all the while holding my far from tiny self as though it were nothing. 

“What the fuck did you think you were doing, son? Manhandling your sister so roughly you could have killed her by making her slip off the damned roof? As it is, she seems to have lost her senses and forgotten how to stand up all together.”

That last bit was said in a completely different tone, a very wry, “Lord, give me patience with swooning girls” kind of tone. I peeked through my lashes, which I’m vain enough to think are thick enough to hide a good peek, but my hero was looking right down at me with such an infectious grin I couldn’t help grinning back. It was Red, which I kind of half suspected, though I’d never to this point been this close to the man – more’s the pity. 

Before I could say thank you, or hello, or I think I can stand now, swoon over, another country was heard from. Along with some loud barking, my dear father must have decided that it was sufficiently past noon that he could risk getting up out of bed.

“Colleen! What’s going on? Whose damn dog is this and what the hell are you doing up on that roof making a spectacle of yourself with some man? Get down here this instant!”

Riley looked at me panicked.  I gave him a reassuring nod before smiling brightly at Colonel Redraven. At least, I think he was a Colonel now.

“Sir, could you put me down, please? My father appears to find my posture unseemly.” I barely repressed a giggle.  The idea of this stern looking soldier who had just saved me from death, or at the very least, serious injury, being reprimanded by my drunken father was an amusing one. No sooner did the image form in my mind though, than my amusement died.  It wasn’t funny. Not really. This was the kind of man my mother should have married. Someone big and strong and brave. Not the family joke, Liam Lennon, who was no doubt about to make a fool of himself and us.

I pressed my hands against those broad shoulders. “Please let me down,” I said, more seriously. “And thank you.”

“Make sure your leg is okay before you let go of me,” he instructed. He kept an arm around my waist as he lowered me. “Riley, is it? Hurry up and finish that patch job, you’ve got rain on the way.” He looked down. “Vasha, quiet. Liam, didn’t you get a call from your brother-in-law to expect me?  I’m taking one of these girls off your hands for a spell. I suspect it’s this one. But help me lower her down now, she’s twisted her leg. Totally my fault, I startled her when I called up and surprised the kids.”

Dear Lord, was I getting out of here? I almost swooned for real when I heard that. But I thought it was time to take charge of the situation. Trusting to my Dad to catch me? We older Lennon kids learned better than that when we were about five and throwing us up in the air was one of Dad’s favorite games when soused.  He was great at tossing us up, big strong Daddy. He just wasn’t all that good at catching us. Mom used to beg him to stop. He’d get mad but not show it, insisting on throwing us higher and higher. Whoever was being tossed would be giggling at first, and laughing, until it got scary. Then you’d be afraid to show Daddy that it wasn’t fun anymore but the truth was, you were so scared you’d be having trouble not peeing yourself and he’d be yelling at you, why weren’t you laughing and he’d blame Mom for that. Sooner or later, he’d be too distracted or too angry or too damn drunk to catch you and you’d fall, hard, to the floor, unless Mom, God bless her athletic prowess, made a save. My oldest brother, Li, broke his arm once; Keir was less lucky, he had two broken arms, a fractured wrist and a couple concussions. He really was Dad’s boy.  Colette and I were caught by Mom more often than not and we learned to roll when we fell. And to run when we heard Dad coming home drunk, taking Riley and Quinn with us.

“I can climb down,” I told Red. “And Riley didn’t mean anything, but thanks for the save.” I smiled my patented O’Keefe dimpled smile at him – to no effect. 

“Can it, kiddo. Been looking at one version or other of that smile for over twenty years. Ya get immune to it after awhile.”  While he talked , he was making his way, me in tow, to the lower roof.

“Hurry up! Are you tossing her down to me or not? I don’t have all day, here. The game is on.”

Red turned toward me. One black brow cocked up. “Which game would that be?”

“Whichever game happens to be on, doesn’t really matter much which one,” I answered matter-of-factly. No need to be bitter. I really did accept that Dad was never going to do any of the repairs that were needed around the house. Not so long as the television still worked.

“Not a nice way to speak of your Pa,” Red commented mildly. He glanced down again and then seemed to make up his mind.

“Don’t worry, Liam. We’ll get down fine. Colleen here wants to see how we’d do this in the Marines. Catch up with you inside – hope you have a beer ready for me.”

Well, that was a safe bet, I thought. Before I could say or do anything, I found myself being swung onto Red’s shoulders – not a lot different from the way Dad used to carry me when I was little. He must have sensed the way I tensed up because he turned his head and murmured in Gaeltacht of all things, for me not to worry. Hearing words of comfort that I hadn’t heard since my grandmother had died made me tear up.  

“Hang on.”

With that, I tightened my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, and he jumped to the large oak tree next to our house. He swung easily from branch to branch until we were low enough that he was able to make the drop to the ground.                                            

“You can let go now.”

We were on the ground but I was clenching his body as tightly as I could. I probably should have been embarrassed but something about Red’s matter-of-fact tone made it okay, which made it easy to lower my legs from his waist, unclench my arms from around his neck and slide down his back to the lovely terra firma. Not without noticing the pretty nice terra firma I was sliding against – could this man really be my Mom’s age?

Think pure thoughts. Um....nope. Not coming up with any.

Red turned around and shook me gently. “We’ve got an audience, kiddo. You might want to turn around now.”

Hoping my face was not as red as it felt, I turned to face whichever family members had gathered. A crowd always assembles at my house.  Pretty much par for the course. Along with Mom and Aunt Laura, Keir and his fiancee were on the porch. Uncle Mark must have just pulled up because he was by his car in the driveway, talking to Dad, and it looked like Uncle Danny’s car pulling up right behind his.

“Great, a gaggle of O’Keefes,” I grumbled, though I made sure I kept a smile on my face as I limped over to say hi to Uncle Mark. I just waved toward the bunch on the porch.  “Did you say you were taking me somewhere? Can we leave right now? I can pick up clothes along the way. I’m good to go.”

He laughed this big, infectious laugh, and all my annoyance over my too big, too intrusive family just dropped away, along with part of the dark cloud that had been dogging me for months, not that I’d ever admit to that. Red had the kind of laugh that made you want to grin, even if you weren’t sure what it was he found so funny.

“Hey Mark, Liam. Is that the brat driving a tinker toy car there?”

Uncle Danny was jumping out of his Lotus by the time we made it over to the driveway – my leg was hurting like hell but Redraven made it seem like he was holding onto me in a friendly way, not to help me keep upright, which was nice of him. Another thing I noticed walking next to him which I hadn’t before was that he was really tall, which isn’t a word I toss around lightly, being almost 6'3" myself.

“Red! Great to see you and don’t make fun of my James Bond car or I won’t let you drive it! Down, Vasha!”  Danny came running up and sort of broke the square that seemed to have everyone just gawking. He seemed to know the big dog that had been quiet since Red had yelled at it, since it ran to him as soon as it heard his voice, and I was sure he was going to be tackled by it, but just in time, she stopped and rolled on the ground for a belly rub.  Which was amazing because Uncle Danny was the original cat guy.

“That’s a dog? I thought it was a horse!”

“Did you see the way he came down from the roof, with Collie on his back like he was Tarzan?”

“She did look like a baby chimp hanging on like that.” That of course was Keir.

From that point, chaos reigned, as it tended to do in our family.  I was able to slip away after a few minutes and go to the room I usually shared with my sister to get cleaned up. I was just brushing my hair out after putting on fresh clothes when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I called, hoping it was just someone coming to tell me food was on the table.

It was Mom.

“I brought you some ice, baby. I thought your leg might need it. Steve said you seemed to have twisted it.” 

“Steve?”

She smiled faintly. “Red.  I always forget that you children think of him by his nickname, as though he were a peer. That’s your Uncle Danny’s fault.”

Not really a fault so much as the fact that Uncle Danny was closer to my age than many of his brothers’ and sisters’ ages, I thought, and he had always called this man “Red” when he recounted the stories of his adventures with Uncle Luke and his friend, the part Native American, Redraven. No sense getting into that with Mom. But looking at Red, I was more envious than ever. It was like seeing a character from a favorite storybook appear on your front lawn. Danny always got the best treats. Imagine getting to hang out at Marine bases with Red and Uncle Luke –how cool was that?

“Colleen? Is your leg bothering you? You’ve just been staring at your brush since I came into the room.” 

Mom looked worried. I gave her a smile and then walked over and hugged her.

“Did I ever mention how much I love you?” I asked her. To my surprise, her eyes filled with tears. “Mom?”

“I’m sorry baby, it’s just that hearing you say that...it makes me think of all the ways I don’t deserve such a wonderful daughter as you. Wonderful children as any of you.” She brushed away at her cheeks. I hugged her again – so strange to be taller than her now. Mom, who had always been the rock in our house, now seemed smaller, more vulnerable.

“Well,” I said, my tone serious, “you do have Riley. He does kind of balance things out.”

She laughed, as I intended. “Poor Riley. He does try a little too hard. I know what that is like. The rest of you are too hard on him. Keir is helping him finish that patch job – under the supervision of your uncles. I do hope all that weight up on the roof doesn’t make it collapse.”

“We’ll be lucky if it doesn’t. That’s a lot of male ego on one A frame,” I agreed. She laughed.

“Always ready with a joke, that’s our Colleen. It will be a relief to get away and not have to be so cheerful, won’t it, sweetie?”

I looked at her in surprise. I loved my Mom dearly but I didn’t see her as all that perceptive.

She smiled ruefully. “I see more than you think. And what I don’t see, one of your uncles usually points out to me. I know that you need to get away. After Haiti – all the focus was on making sure Colette was okay, and there was good reason for that. She had very serious injuries, but you did too and....”

“I’m okay,” I quickly told her, not wanting her to talk about Haiti. Not now, not ever. She looked at me with sad eyes.

“Colette’s injuries were physically worse, perhaps, but you had the more psychologically harrowing time. And I know that losing out on playing basketball this year....”

“Basketball cannot begin to compare to losing the ability to have children, which is what Colette has had to deal with,” I said as firmly as possible. “I appreciate your concern, Mom, really, but I am fine. Better than fine. Which is why I am interested in a proposal to get out of here for awhile. Twenty-three is a bit old to be playing tag on the roof with my little brother. I should be out, using my degrees, not twiddling my thumbs.”

Mom was watching me closely. As an awkward silence fell between us, I tried to come up with some excuse for why I was still home, why I hadn’t continued with the work I had planned to do, aid work overseas. Being afraid of enclosed, dark places...or of the dark, period...didn’t sound right so I searched for a better, less wimpy way of putting it. Fortunately, since I wasn’t finding one, Mom spoke first.

“Steve is heading to a reservation in Montana where he used to live, after he picks up his grandfather in Canada. They need a schoolteacher and social worker on the reservation but their last Vista Corps volunteer left eight months ago. Your Uncle Luke pulled some strings and fast tracked your application, which I submitted – kind of going over your head. Anyway, you were far and above the best candidate and they’d love to....”

“When can I go?”

She looked both relieved that I wasn’t turning it down, and worried that maybe she should keep me home. Hiding under the bed as I’d been doing. Well, not actually under the bed. Too confined and dark. But on it, under the covers. I hugged her again. She smiled but still looked uncertain now that the moment had come. I knew the feeling but was trying to ignore it and focus on the good part. The getting away from home – on a bona fide Redraven adventure, as I had just been thinking. How cool was that?

“Red wants to leave within the hour but I’m sure he’d give you a couple of days to....”

“An hour is good.”

She started to argue but seemed to think better of it and instead stood up. “I’d better feed him then. He’s come a long way and the two of you have a long road ahead of you.” She started to leave but I called her back.

“Mom.”

She turned around hesitantly and I could tell she was worried about me. I was filled with so much love for her at that moment because I knew the hell she’d gone through when Colette and I were lost in Haiti and she had no idea if we were alive or dead. And she would really love it if I were to go to law school or medical school and stay safe and sound close to home. But, because she knew how afraid I was of going back into the world, that was exactly what she was encouraging me to do.

“Thanks, Mom.”

She smiled her own version of that patented O’Keefe smile. “Don’t mention it. I kind of love you too, you know.”

Sometimes she still managed to surprise me.

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