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#Post#: 3263--------------------------------------------------
One Safe Place
DIR By: Maggie Flannery
Date: May 25, 2017, 11:07 am
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Summary: There are many lessons to life but sometimes learning
that parents aren't always right or who you even thought they
were when you were growing up might just be the hardest part of
growing older. This, of course is followed very closely by the
fact that we all must say goodbye to those we love, sometimes
sooner than we thought. The Sheehan sisters are finding that
life isn't always cut and dried as they settle their mother's
final affairs. Headstrong Nora is trying to juggle life on the
west coast and live up to her mother's expectations, soft
hearted Colleen is learning that life isn't as rosy as she'd
hoped and that a back bone is something worth having, and wild
hearted Fiona is just trying to make sense of everything and
make her own mark on the world. Together they weather the storm
of loss, love and redemption back in the house that they were
raised in while trying to contend with the past that was quietly
kept from them.
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#Post#: 3266--------------------------------------------------
Re: One Safe Place
DIR By: Maggie Flannery
Date: July 9, 2017, 6:35 pm
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How many roads you’ve traveled
How many dreams you’ve chased
across the sand and sky and gravel
Looking for one safe place
One safe place
When you break you’ll fall from grace
into the arms of understanding
looking for one safe place
Life is trial by fire
and love’s the sweetest taste
Now pray it takes us higher
to one safe place
Nora
Much needed rain pattered against the windows around Nora
Sheehan’s tiny house outside of Santa Cruz. If she strained her
ears she could hear the waves crashes down off the beach and the
wind gust over the shoreline. Autumn was coming to her corner of
California even if the air never got crisp like it did back on
the East Coast. Her day had taken a turn down the road into the
same monotony as it always had for the past is years. She had
come out to the west coast because she thought it was where she
belonged, right in the spotlight - basking in the ever present
sunlight and the smiling faces of her fellow West Coasters. That
had all come to a heart stopping stand still today when she’d
gotten into work and had ended up pink slipped. It had been
taped to the brass photo frame that held the last group shot her
mother had snapped right before she’d left home. Something about
‘down sizing their entertainment agent base’ and taking the
business in a different direction. Meaning Nora was officially
out of a job once the man she’d been hired to act as a secretary
for was let go. She wasn’t sure what was worse, the fact that
she’d lied to her family and told them that she was the one with
that was in the ‘entertainment business’ or the fact that she’d
been let go without a severance package. True to her headstrong,
not so laid back New England upbringing she’d called her boss
out of the line of BS and told him to stuff his down sizing
spiel right up where the sun don’t shine and that she certainly
didn’t need his letter of recommendation to Laughlin and Seeger,
a recruitment firm for the lesser known, less talented ‘talents’
that populated Hollywood and made up of nearly every
non-speaking background characters for TV and made of Television
film. There was no way in hell she was going to start over by
playing ‘gopher girl’ for a bunch of snobs like them.
“Col, if you’re calling about that Stay Puft Man dream again it
can wait until morning, m’kay?”
A crackle in the air on the line and a shuddering tearful sigh
sounded across coasts and time lines. The glaring green numbers
on the bedside clock made Nora’s heart clench and her stomach
drop. ‘News after 7PM is never ever good news’ she could hear
her mother’s voice in her head. Something was definitely wrong
back home in Billport. Colleen might have been a tiny bit
flighty but she would never have called Nora at 12:45 in the
morning unless the world was ending. Given the three hour time
difference it was only 9:45 back home, either way it something
was catastrophically wrong.
“Nori it’s Ma…”
‘Please let her be okay, please please let her be okay.’
The eldest Sheehan sister prayed silently to herself as she
untangled herself from her bedsheets and stumbled over to the
closet to grab a suitcase as she strained to listen to Colleen’s
strangled words. The telltale wheezing rasp foretold of an
anxiety induced asthma attack was right around the corner.
“Col, you’re hyperventilating. Do you have your inhaler?”
“Ran…out…after…I…called Fi…”
Came the reply followed by more wheezing and the shift of the
telephone. Somewhere in the background Nora could just make out
the filler noise of St. Mary’s hospital, it was Wednesday and
she had said she was on call all week in the Triage Unit, a
switch up from her usual work in either the pediatric or
maternity wards. They must have rolled Ma in just as Col punched
in at Billport General. Lord knew the hospital was small enough,
all you had to do was look down to the main entrance and you’d
see who was being wheeled in from the nurse’s station.
“Col, you’re a nurse for God’s sake where’s your back up? What
happened to Ma?”
“Can’t get one until six tomorrow morning, pharmacy’s out.
She’s…had a heart attack. She’s not…she’s not. Nori she’s gone.”
For one sickening second Nora and Colleen’s collective world
stopped, all the other could hear was the other on the opposite
ends of the telephone. Dread, confusion, overwhelming sadness
washed over both sisters as their world was irrevocably changed.
“I’m booking a flight out as soon as we hang up.”
“What about Fi? She’s all the way out in Lowell and who’s…who’s
gonna get her? I mean…I can go it’s not that long a drive…but
shouldn’t someone stay…with Ma?”
Nora ran a slender hand through her riot of wavy dark curls and
sighed. Deep down she knew that Colleen wouldn’t be okay to
drive. Not after she’d had a nebulizer treatment and a dose or
two of her inhaler meds. Colleen was the middle one, the one
that was shoved out of the way to make way for Nora’s
accomplishments and Fiona’s needs. Which was why she was always
the mother hen of their tight knit little family, always making
sure every one was provided for and putting herself last. She
was the one with a sense of duty, a true sense of family and why
she’d never left Billport in her entire life except to commute
back and forth to Bangor to go to the nursing school there. She
was the one that went over and checked on Ma no matter the
weather and did the grocery shopping for her, took care of her
when she was sick and took on an extra shift or two to help Ma
cover the bills when money got tight and Fi’s room and board
fees at Mass Uni were due. Something Nora knew that she should
have done as she was the eldest but just couldn’t bring herself
to do because money was tight for her too, hell Colleen was the
one to quietly wire her money to cover her first phone bill when
she moved out to Cali and she’d never once let on to Ma. Col was
also the one to send care packages when they were truly needed
the most by both Nora and Fiona. For once Nora was stepping up
to plate and providing for her sister.
“I’ll book a flight from LA to Boston and I’ll rent a car. I’ll
get her Col. You…you stay where you are and try and get ahold of
Jim, okay?”
More wheezing and then another voice could be heard in the
background, another nurse maybe? The tell tale hum of a
nebulizer unit thrummed loudly and then faded for a moment. Col
came back on and her breathing wasn’t as labored, she still
wheezed but she was much easier to understand.
“O-okay, Nor… love you…and tell Fi I love her too, okay?”
The sound of her sister’s voice should have calmed her but it
didn’t. She’d never heard Colleen so lost, Nora could hear the
hitch in Col’s voice. Words stuck in her throat as she tried to
form a reply. Instead she simply hummed in response and answered
with an “Love you too, Col…and I will…you’re right you know. You
always are.”
Hurried she packed up her suitcases with numb hands, knowing
deep down that she wouldn’t be coming back. Thank God her lease
was up at the end of month she yanked the house key from her key
ring and sighed as she mulled things over. She’d come this far
in her life only to realize that she never should have left
Maine behind. If she’d stayed maybe things wouldn’t have
happened like they did. So much for being the eldest sister,
the crowning achievement, the self assured one, the one with her
**** together and if Ma knew she was anything but she knew she’d
have her ass handed to her on a silver platter.
Her thoughts drifted back to Ma, all alone in that rambling old
cottage off of King Lane. The white clapboards peeling and the
cornflower blue window panes bleached by the sun into the blue
that matched her eyes. There had been much debate two years ago
when Ma had called to tell her that she’d finally been convinced
to paint everything white. Nora could almost smell the salt air
that was so different than the air here on the west coast. She
missed it’s tang and brashness as the winds changed with the
tide below the rocky cliff line that was at the edge of the
backyard just past the clothesline and the huge oak tree that
housed a treehouse and the old tire swing both built lovingly by
their Dad, Jim before their parents divorced and he moved over
to Bangor full time. Their mother, Eileen was their touchstone,
a mixture of hard edges and soft down, her backbone was made of
steel; her outer shell almost impenetrable hiding her heart of
gold. Something all three girls inherited in their own way.
There was no way that she could truly be gone. They’d talked
only last week and she had sounded just fine. She’d talked about
her day and what she planned on doing for the weekend; the usual
go over to Shaw’s and pick up odds and ends for dinner and then
head over the church for bingo night. The pot had been up into
the hundreds and it was for a good cause then on Saturday she
planned on heading over to the St. Mary’s soup kitchen to
volunteer. Sunday was always the same, up at dawn to pick up the
house and get ready for church and then go to the ladies
auxiliary meeting and meet up with Colleen for dinner after
she’d gotten off work. Ma never seemed to want more than that,
happy with her lot given she lived as average a life as any
other Billport lady of a certain age. “Fifty-one for the last
two years”
Ma would have said in that chuffed little lilting accent of hers
that the girls had inherited as well even though Nora had done
her damnedest to drop. Fiona’s had morphed into the spectrum of
Maine and Massachusetts while Col’s had stayed ever the same
much like the woman herself. Nimble fingers dialed the the
number she’d memorized during her secretarial tenure.
‘Tradewinds Air, this is Thelma speaking how may I help you
today?”
“Hello, I’d like to book the first none stop to Boston please.
Immediately.”
Fiona
“Great, it’s only a little after seven and here I am locking
myself away from all the fun.”
Cackles and whoops filled the dorm as the bass thudded somewhere
downstairs. The air was rife with the scent of pot and cigarette
smoke as a hundred or so U Mass college kids milled about moving
to the music, trying to put the make on one another or get so
plastered they could barely remember their own names. Fiona
Sheehan, however, was not one of them. Holed up in the room
that was rightfully hers tonight she attempted to study for her
last two finals before the semester let out for the summer. She
had a feeling that she had aced her Psychics, Psych and her
Women’s Lib finals but her English Classics and her Journalism
Ethics were the ones that were given her the most grief at the
moment. Professor Denny, as cool and far out as he was was tough
one when it came to grading, particularly on the Don Quixote
material and Gardner was even more brutal when it came to the
subject of finals essays, the topics were always unknown until
the day of. Despite being a strict B and moderately high C
student with a mind for many subjects when they interested her
she yet to actually choose a major she felt comfortable enough
with dedicating her life to. Nora had been a communications
major when she’d gone to Wiltshire University just twenty
minutes from home. Colleen had known right from her Freshman
year of high school that she had wanted to be a nurse and true
to form she enrolled in Bangor school of Nursing, graduating
with honors four years later. Her sisters had always known what
they had wanted to do, always had a plan. Fiona, meanwhile still
had her heart set on marrying a rockstar and following her
favorite bands around the country, just going with the flow. Ma
had put the kibosh on her cross country trek to follow Quigley’s
Bloom on tour and the mere idea of moving out to Seattle to
experience the grunge scene was dead in the water so she’d
dragged her feet for a year or so and then enrolled at the only
place that would take her, U-Mass and hoped that would make Ma
happy. It hadn’t. Nearly two and half years in and still telling
her mother that she was still undecided left an odd taste in her
mouth and a sinking feeling all around her. She was nearly three
hours away from home give or take and Fiona still felt like she
wasn’t far enough.
“God, for a two hundred dollar textbook you’d think the table of
contents would be laid out better.”
She muttered to herself before she reached for her pile of notes
and her neon highlighter. Carefully tracing bright pink lines
over the section of legal pad she needed Fiona observed her work
and sighed before re-reading the passage one last time and
praying to the all mighty academic gods that it would meld into
her brain before her 9AM final tomorrow morning. The steady
thrum of what sounded like Soundgarden pounded up through the
floor. Heaving one last sigh she plodded on, only half wishing
she was downstairs perfecting her keg stand abilities and
showing every one up with her kickass beer pong talents.
Somewhere between cramming ancient names of writers she’d never
read again and outdated psych theories into her already aching
head she must have nodded off. A solid thump from the other side
of the worn oak door plastered with posters and fashion ads she
heard her name being called. It couldn’t have been Jenny the RA,
last Fiona knew she was downstairs overseeing the keg
placements.
“Sheehan open up, you’ve got a phone call and it’s important.”
Checking the clock on her nightstand she noticed that it was
only 8:30. Running a hand through her tangled red locks she
stretched and reached for the phone perched on the desk and
pressed the flashing button for line two.
“ I got it, ‘lo?”
For a split second she thought she was being pranked because the
noises on the other end of the phone sounded downright
animalistic. The background noise only gave away the location as
a hospital.
“F..Fiona.”
Colleen. Her voice hoarse and a wheeze creeping into her chest
Fiona’s stomach clenched as she broke out into a cold sweat.
Colleen only called on Saturday evenings at six on the dot. It
was Tuesday. She’d just gotten Col’s last care package from home
and the cranberry hermit cookies sat in the cheery little tin
they always came shipped in with a little note telling her that
Col and Ma loved her and to remember to call and let them know
when term was over so Col could come and pick her up.
“Colly? Are you okay?”
More sobs, those gut wrenching sobs that Fiona had only heard
once before and prayed she’d never ever hear from her sister
ever again.
“Fiona..Ma…”
A rasping breath in and then shakily let out as Colleen tried to
calm herself into forming coherent sentences. The line crackled
as her sister shifted the phone for a moment. Fiona’s own heart
was beating a million miles a minute and her mind zipping to
each and every horrible possibility.
“Ma’s heart gave out, Fi…”
Sinking whirling dread formed a poisonous ball in Fiona’s belly.
Shaking her head as she felt the familiar burn of tears behind
her eyes.
“No, Doctor Wagner just refilled her medication. You called last
week and told me, Colly.”
“She was down at the church helping set up for the bingo night
and she collapsed..”
“But the church is like, what? Seven miles from the hospital?
Can’t they put her on a respirator or a machine or something?”
“They did everything they could, Fi.”
“No they didn’t! If they did she’d still be here! Why didn’t you
help her? How could you just let her die?!”
Hurling the receiver away and then picking it up once more just
to slam it down into the cradle, once, twice, three times.
Hoping every time that this was some sick demented dream she was
having from too many late nights spent studying and too much pot
on the weekends. She found herself on her feet and grabbing all
the clothes she could, dirty, clean it didn’t matter they all
went into her worn duffel bag. A swirl of memories flooded her
mind as she sank down on her knees as she reached under her bed
for the last of her clothes. Somehow they’d always ended up
under there and she was never why.
‘Fiona Marie Sheehan you are the Queen of the dust bunnies, you
know that?’
She could hear Ma saying as she let out a little laugh with a
shake of her head.
In an instant Fiona found herself curled into a ball next to her
duffel unable to cry. instead she rocked herself and hummed a
melody from her childhood. Something about ships and seabirds.
It always sounded so much nicer when Ma sang it though, now it
sounded sadder, colder, foreign.
Colleen
“Well I don’t see why I need to be kept for observation. I’m
fine, really. It was only a little tumble.”
Colleen, or as she was known to her patients as Nurse Sheehan,
arched a dark brow and kept her steady green gaze on the elderly
woman, Mrs. Evie Williams from just around the lane over at
Col’s mother’s place. A sudden dizzy spell had sent the old
woman into a tumble down the last three stairs of her rambling
old victorian and here she was, a few superficial scrapes and a
bruised ego to go along with a night hold for observation
because of the goose egg that was forming on her wrinkled
forehead.
“I know it was but Mrs. Williams we’ve got to keep you just in
case. Hey, think of it this way, you’ve got cable and staff at
your beck and call. Can’t get much better than that can it?”
Mrs. Williams’ face brightened as she mulled over the thought of
having someone to wait on her hand and food and rewarded Colleen
with a small smile.
“I suppose you’re right, dear.”
Colleen returned the smile as she did a final check of the
woman’s vitals and fluffed her pillows and covered her with a
light blanket.
“Alright, I think you’re set for the night but if you need
anything press the green button on the side of the bed, okay?”
Mrs. Williams nodded before settling back and clicking on the
television to catch the tail end of some game show promising
heaps of cash for trivia knowledge. Heaving a sigh as she closed
the door to room 143 Colleen checked her watch. Seven
forty-five. Nearly time for her dinner hour and then another
eleven hours to go before a week off. God, the laundry she had
to do when she got home. Not to mention the grocery shopping.
Eh, they could wait until the tomorrow anyway. She had decided
as she sat down for a quiet moment to double check the various
charts that were left to pile up at the nurse’s station. She was
half way through a double check of the prescribed medications
for three different patients when she heard a call come over
radio from local EMT branch. Female. early fifties. cardiac
infarction be on stand by. It wasn’t uncommon for heart attacks
to happen but something in the pit of Colleen’s stomach told her
to ask the location from which the patient was coming from and
when Susan, the other nurse working the shift with Colleen had
told her from the church she felt a knot form. Billport was tiny
and there was only one church in the entire town. St. Mary’s. Of
which the local soup kitchen had taken it’s name.
‘Please don’t let it be Ma. Please please please don’t let it be
Ma.’
Colleen found herself praying as she saw the flashing red and
blue lights flare up out front and a flurry of sound and
movement overwhelmed her. Billport General, or as it was now
known, County Home Hospital, was a tiny but well equipped
hospital that had treated it’s fair share of major emergencies
since it served not only Billport but three other counties
neighboring the town. At this very moment it’s head charge nurse
was beside herself when she spotted a familiar shock of blonde
bouffant laid out on the gurney having her vitals taken. They
still couldn’t get a steady reading and she was now officially
rushed into a private triage suite as the OR was being prepped.
Familiar brown eyes met hers as she stood there shaking trying
to grasp her mother’s wrist to read a pulse. For one sickening
second she couldn’t find it. Watching with tear dimmed eyes as
her colleagues tried their best to do their jobs, what she
should be able to do, Colleen felt lost.
“Colleen. Colleen. Nurse Sheehan. I’ve got to ask you to step
out.”
She knew those eyes but for a split second she couldn’t place
them in the fog that had drifted into her mind. She recognized
the calm voice. The kind boyish face that was framed with a
carefully coiffed thick head of chestnut colored hair. Jerry.
Dr. Houseman. The transplant from Vermont. He’d been working
their for the past four years and he was still razzed by the
locals as being a “newbie.” A quiet amicable friendship had
formed between the two of them after the last full moon Saturday
night when it seemed like every emergency in the state of Maine
was occurring in their backyard.
“But she’s my mother. I have to…”
“No, no you don’t. Policy says we can’t let you.”
With that he gently escorted her out into the waiting area and
went back into the triage suite to do his very best to get her
mother stable. A steady flat beep sounded and a barking order
for a crash cart sounded but Colleen was oblivious to it. She’d
seen her fair share of flat lines and knew that more often then
not they weren’t able to be saved no matter how experienced or
qualified you were to try and revive them. Seven times they
tried only to have that steady beep fill the room. Nothing could
be done. Eileen Sheehan was gone and her middle daughter didn’t
need to be told twice as she heard the time being called. She’d
always hated that part. Jerry was sitting next to her explaining
what had happened and what they had tried but it hadn’t taken.
Colleen nodded as she felt the familiar tightening in her own
chest. Wheezing filled her ears as tears welled up in her eyes.
Jerry had gone from holding and patting her hand to pulling her
in for a hug, consoling her just as she had done for him a year
earlier when he’d gotten the phone call about his grandfather.
The smell of his aftershave and murmurings of reassurance didn’t
do much to console her but she thanked him anyway as she tried
to compose herself as best she could before reaching for the
inhaler in the pocket of her baby pink scrubs. She hadn’t taken
note of the measured doses and soon found her heart hammering
against her ribs as she tried to dial her younger sister Fiona
who was away at college. Two rings turned to three and just as
she was about to hang up someone, not Fiona, answered.
“May I speak to Fiona Sheehan, please? It’s her sister…and it’s
an..
What was it? An emergency? Ma was gone. But yes, it was still a
family emergency.
“It’s a family emergency.”
The thrum of the line clicked and whirred reminding Colleen of
all those harsh winters when all three girls lived at home. They
always marvel at the height of the snow and thrill of being
bundled up and running head long into it. The wind stinging
their cheeks a brilliant shade of red as they zipped down
McCavish Hill which was right to the left of the property they
called home. They’d spent hours and hours outside and never
tired of the endless snowball fights and having to lug the
toboggan back up the hill, usually with Fi on the back because
she had always been so tiny and Ma had always told them that
they needed to watch out of her.
“It’s what sisters do, y’know?”
She’d said as she had bundled Nora and then Colleen tightly into
their winter jackets and snow pants, wrapping handmade scarves
around their necks and fastening mittens and plopping hats onto
their heads. They had nodded and each given her a hug before
darting out the door.
“ ‘Lo?”
Colleen was snapped out of her revery at the sound of her
younger sister’s voice. She was willing herself not to cry. But
the lump in her throat betrayed her as her voice hitched.
“F-fiona. It’s Ma…”
Colleen’s heart was pounding so hard she was almost positive
that Fiona could hear it through the phone all the way in
Boston. How the hell did you tell your sister that your mother
was dead?
“Is she okay? Did she fall or something?”
“No…Fi…Ma’s heart gave out.”
A flurry of obscenities could be heard as Colleen held the
receiver away from her ear. Each word cutting her deeper and
deeper. She knew she would have reacted the same way had it been
her in Fiona’s shoes, if she was without medical training.
“Fi, they did everything they could. Nothing..could be done.”
“No they didn’t! You’re a nurse, Colleen! You should have known
what to do and you let her die! How could you?!”
Fiona’s words deafened her, her mind spun and then there was a
bang. The line went dead and the prerecorded operator’s message
came on asking her to hang up and try again. Numbly she reached
for the disconnect and pushed it before dialing her oldest
sister. After a five minute phone conversation Noreen had been
much more understanding, Colleen hadn’t thought she would be for
some reason but she was.It hadn’t helped that given the stress
of the situation Colleen had nearly turned blue on the phone.
Her asthma had kicked in and now she sat listening to her eldest
sister make plans to pick up Fiona once her plane landed.
“Nori, you’ve gotta call her…she hung up on me and…I think she
hates me…”
A pause in the shift of Noreen’s phone.
“Oh Col, don’t say that. You know how Fi handles stress, she’s
in shock that’s all.”
Wiping her eyes with the tissue Jerry had offered her, why he
was still there she’d never know, and sighed.
“I tried to tell her they did everything they could but…you know
Fi, she wouldn’t listen. You want me to call Jim or do you wanna
do it?”
Colleen sounded weary, even to herself and Noreen agreed.
Perhaps it was for the best if Col reached out to their father,
after all the eldest daughter and their father weren’t on great
speaking terms as it was.
“I’ll be…where the hell will I be?”
Colleen stopped for a moment and thought over her schedule. Her
mind felt sluggish and her heart heavy. Checking the clock she
sighed. She’d be home.
“I’ll be home, my place I mean.”
“You moved out of Ma’s?”
“Yeah, about seven months ago. Check the notecard I sent you
last week, it’s got my new number on it.”
Noreen shuffled through her papers and found it with a chuckle.
“Got it and I never did say thank you for those brownies you
sent..or the check to cover my phone bill and groceries. You
never did tell Ma did you?”
“Hell no, she’d had smacked me into next week. I love you, Nori.
Safe travels, okay? and…tell Fi I love her?”
Noreen shifted the phone one final time and said she would.
“Love you too, Colly. Fi does too.”
One final goodbye and Colleen was left sidelined as the hustle
and bustle of the hospital continued around her, she’d never
felt more like an outsider then in that moment. Eyes swimming
with tears she found her feet and went into the room where her
mother’s body was. Unhooked from machines and covered with a
stark white sheet. Reaching out to uncover her face she could
have screamed. That wasn’t Ma’s face. It looked to drawn, old.
She looked for a split second like she sleeping as Colleen
reached out to hold her hand one last time.
“I’m sorry, Ma. I’m so sorry.”
Tears slid down her cheeks as she brushed back the stray hair
from her mother’s face, much like Eileen used to do for her when
she was small. Their nightly ritual Ma had called it as she’d
tucked each of the girls in for the night. She was startled at
how cool her mother’s forehead felt. She knew it would happen
but not this quickly.
An arm wrapped itself around her shoulder as she was led away
from the tiny bed.
“You haven nothing to be sorry for, Colleen. Nothing.”
Jerry again, kind brown eyes tinged with sorrow as he eased her
into the staff lounge and poured her a cup of fresh tea. She
watched him put in a generous dollop of honey and a squeeze of
lemon. How in the world has he known she preferred tea over
coffee let alone the ratios of lemon to honey? Curious man that
Jerry Houseman.
“Thanks.”
He plopped himself down across from her, his own steaming cup of
tea set in front of him. Taking a sip he grimaced as he got a
mouthful of coffee grounds.
“That’s why I’m glad I’m a tea fan. You’ve got some grounds in
your teeth.”
Colleen said as she passed him a napkin and collected his cup
getting up to start a fresh pot.
“I’m so sorry about you mother…if there’s anything you need…”
He was first to offer his condolences to her, not Stevens who
had done the chest compressions and barked out orders. Stevens
always had been a **** but Colleen had never voice her opinion.
Lump forming in her throat and her eyes welling up again she
nodded her thanks.
“Thanks, Dr. Houseman.”
“It’s Jerry, Colleen.”
“Thanks, Jerry.”
The light on the coffeemaker blinked and the carafe filled.
Pouring him a cup as he had done for her she carefully stirred
in three sugars and handed it to him with another nod of thanks.
“I think I’ll be punching out…I’ve got a few more phone calls to
make and I’m pretty sure Jim’s not going to have anything
remotely nice to say about my mother. So I’d do better taking
that sort of verbal abuse in private.”
Jerry had nodded. He remembered her telling him all about Jimmy
Sheehan when she’d driven him clear across three states when
he’s gotten the news of his grandfather’s passing last year. It
was then that he had realized just how different their lives had
been. He’d been raised in a liberal Jewish household in the the
inner city and she and her sisters had been raised in a staunch
Catholic place where as a children they were encouraged to go
out and brave the natural world teeming with greenery and
postcard like vistas. But sadly her father had ruled her young
life with an iron fist and verbal abuse. It hadn’t helped that
he’d like to drink. Well, until her mother had not so quietly
put her foot down and divorced him. Throwing him out into the
middle of the street and threatening to castrate him if he ever
set foot on her front porch ever again. Despite all that
Colleen’s life had molded her into a deeply compassionate
person. She had found herself totally immersed in a world of
mourning that wasn’t like her own and had even joined him in
sitting Shiva with his family. She had driven him back a week
later and then made a charitable contribution in granddad’s name
not three days later to a synagogue over in Bangor. Jerry’s mind
still boggled at that. No one could be truly be that nice, could
they?
“If he gets too mouthy just hang up. You and your sisters don’t
need that. Not now.”
Patting him on the shoulder one final time Colleen nodded.
“I’ll keep that in mind and thank you…for everything.”
Not ten minutes later Jerry Houseman watched the dark-haired
nurse walk out the front entrance and out to her car as the sun
peeked over the horizon. He kicked himself and silently gave the
finger to fate. He had just gotten up the stones enough to
actually ask Colleen out and here she was dealing with her
mother’s untimely demise. He had met Eileen Sheehan numerous
times and had immediately taken a liking to the older woman. She
was a spitfire with a compassionate heart. She’d always ask him
how his mother was and if he’d been eating enough. When Colleen
had first introduced them to one another she had invited him
over to her cottage for a proper home cooked meal, he had taken
her up on the offer and was surprised to find an honest to God
pot roast with potatoes and gravy awaiting him. She had given
him a wink and said that he could use some fattening up and that
she hoped everything was to his liking. Every day after that
Colleen would drop familiar Tupperware containers into the
fridge marked strictly for him to take home.
“She’s like everybody’s Mom around here.”
Colleen had said only last week as she had dropped off a tray of
homemade cookies to the nurse’s station. Turning back to go
finish his rounds he passed the tiny dimly lit room and saw two
orderlies carefully moving the sheet covered form and he felt a
twinge in his own chest.
“I’ll take her down, Greg.”
He’d said to the taller greying orderly as they moved her to the
gurney. Silently he walked Eileen to the basement level. Once
there in front of door seven he sighed.
“You were one hell of a lady, Ms. Sheehan. You’re going to be
missed more then you'll ever know. Baruch dayan ha’emet.”
Gently he eased her into the cooler unit and shut the door
softly pausing only to wipe stray tears from his eyes.
#Post#: 3270--------------------------------------------------
Re: One Safe Place
DIR By: Wolfy
Date: July 25, 2017, 12:12 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Uh, you know, I read this the night before I came back from my
holiday, but hadn't been able to post anything while I was away
which really sucked. I have never felt so much emotion when
reading a piece like this, to the point where I ended up in a
ball of tears at the corner of my bed because I was so
overwhelmed. It was one powerful blow after another, but so
beautifully worded that I couldn't possibly find any fault in
that at all. I live for stories that can ignite that sort of
blazing flame inside of me while I'm reading and feeling
everything that the characters do, and it's such a lovely
experience. You are able so well to write in that style and I
see that clear as day every single time you posted a new piece;
especially the ones of loss and mourning. Your stories featuring
Jackie are especially heart-wrenching, but this one as a
standalone backstory for Colleen and her family is just as tough
at tugging on the heart strings and really having a good old
pull at them. If I had a star system on this forum, I would be
giving you the highest of ratings for this and thanking you for
writing it, really, because this has come from such a deep place
and must have been just as difficult to write as it was to read.
Absolutely a fantastic bit of fiction and I have never been
quite that moved before.
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