Daughter of Australia by Harmony Verna Page A

passed. I’m sorry, son.”
    James dropped Leonora’s hand.
    â€œJames . . .” Father McIntyre reached for the boy, but James jumped from his touch. He spun on his heels, splaying gravel as he ran, his head and shoulders plowing forward like a bull with a sword through his neck.
    Father McIntyre’s own sword lodged in his heart as he watched the boy hurl across the trail, felt Leonora’s grief-brimmed eyes upon his skin. “He’ll forget with time, Leonora.” His voice was hollow and distant but crisp as ice water. “He just needs time.”
    Leonora stepped away, her feet angled toward the cliffs.
    â€œJust leave him be, Leonora.” Father McIntyre reached for her. “Give him space.” But she was already gone.
    A great loneliness hung in their wake. He should have never written the letter, and guilt spit cruelly. And so the priest did not rush but walked soberly and carefully upon the bleached pebbles until he reached that invisible line that he did not have the fortitude to pass. There, from the ridge where the sea is first seen and teases in a line above the cliffs, he saw James with toes pointed at the edge of the world, his arms clasped around his knees. Leonora stood behind.
    James turned to her and shouted harshly through the sound of waves, pushed her away. The girl did not move. James leaned toward her and shouted again, his face red and wet with tears and anger. But still she stood, her arms hanging loose and immobile. James pounded the ground with his fist and then turned back to the sea and buried his head into his knees.
    Leonora moved now. She inched beside him and lowered to the ground. Her tiny, thin arms wrapped around the boy’s shoulders. James struggled against the embrace and she tightened her hold, her arms rigid as steel as she held him as a mother would a child. She rested her head atop of his and held his spine up. This waif of a girl did not let go but held his shoulders so they did not break and she took his burdens and carried them against her own sloped shoulders and her thin spine. And there upon the cliffs where the sea worked daily to beat the sandstone to crumbs, there could be no distinction of one child’s grief from the other’s.
    A terrible thickness crowded the Father’s throat and his nostrils flared to keep the tears at bay. This child comforted James when he could not. He brought James suffering and this child brought him warmth. The thickness softened in his throat, but the lines of his jaw grew rigid. Father McIntyre turned away from the children petulantly. To console was easy; to cause a child pain for his own good, for his own future, now that took brute, hard strength.
    Father McIntyre stomped down the path, stomped away the tenderness, the warmth and the innocence. He kept his head down as he entered the church and slammed the door to his office. He dropped the pile of worn and traveled letters onto his desk, spilling them out of the loose twine. James’s face, the boy’s raw and open grief, pinched his mind. He covered his face with his hands, rubbed his eyes to rid them of the image. He should have never sent the letter. He could have spared the boy this pain. Father McIntyre pulled his fingers down his face. James would heal in time, he tried to remind himself. Maybe he’d even thank him one day.
    The Father sat in his chair and leaned back, rocked against the natural bend of its frame. The fingers of one hand danced against the knuckles of the other until he stopped abruptly and snatched the open letter off the top of the pile. He read it again, carefully this time, and the petulance swirled to anger. He was angry he had written the letter. But he was angrier they had written back. Angry they were alive and wanted James.
    His prejudice bubbled now. Some poor Irish farmer wanted James. His James. They shared a name and now they wanted him. For what? To plant potatoes and pull a donkey cart? Pull