Natural Causes
The men walked to the front desk in the lobby of the hotel in Ballyvaughan. The sun had not risen yet and the fog limited the view through the window to the immediacy of the streetlight in front of the old building. They had been there for the week, exploring the village and surrounding area, being educated by their guide whose knowledge of the place was eighty years old, but retained what seemed like one-hundred percent accuracy. Everything was a slice of time, frozen and presented on a pretty little plate that she described to them layer by layer.
“How was your stay, sirs?” The desk clerk had a huge smile on his face and Declan leaned back to diffuse some of its effect.
“It’s been wonderful,“ he said quickly as he handed over the key.
“That’s good to hear. It has been a pleasure having you this week. How is your great-aunt this morning?”
Declan had hoped they would get out without having to mention her, but the cat was out of the bag. “She’s good and is so happy to be here. She came over to South Carolina in the 40s and this was her first time back since then.”
“Well, she is a pure delight and treasure to have. Thank you for bringing her back to the home country.”
Being with Aunt Maura for the week was the most time he had ever spent with her at once and he could begin to hear his voice begin to mimic hers, the lilt creeping in on top of the southern drawl. “It’s been amazing. She showed us all the places she went as a kid that are still here and we’ve met a lot of locals who remember her family and a few she went to school with when she was a little girl. We’ve learned a lot about things we never had any clue about.”
“That is a wonderful thing to hear.” The smile was still fixed, but Declan was getting used to the glow and his mouth couldn’t seem to stop making sounds..
“We’ve met cousins we’d never heard of and have been invited to dinner everywhere we’ve been.”
The other young man shifted and touched him firmly on the shoulder, “Declan, we need to go.“
Declan stopped and looked at the clerk, “He’s right. Big plans today.”
The clerk’s smile faded a bit as though he was actually a little sad the conversation was coming to an end. “May I call a car for you and your great aunt for your travels today?“ The clerk looked over their shoulders into the lobby. “Where is the Lady Maura this morning?”
“She’s not here,“ said Declan. “She told us yesterday that she had people to see and would be gone by the time we got up and not to worry about her.”
The smile returned in brighter intensity. “Oh, I hope I’m that active when I reach her age.“
Declan held up his right hand, “Fingers crossed,” as he felt the tug on his jacket and said goodbye. The two men walked quickly for six blocks before hailing a cab in front of another hotel to take them to the airport. They had placed the “Do Not Disturb” placard on the door and it worked for most of the day. By the time the staff discovered Maura lying peacefully in the room, they were on the plane over the Atlantic.
Phone calls were made and vague, then specific, threats issued by the local authorities , but once it was determined she’d died of natural causes and there was a spot in an old family plot in town , the hotel and town arranged for a small service attended by the cousins who’d recently just met her for the first time and the classmates who’d just seen her for the last. Her name was in the book holding all the confirmations of the last two hundred years at the local church and Declan assured the priest he spoke to over the phone that she was a good Catholic who still attended services weekly and spoke fondly of Jesus and Mary. He relayed the story of her taking him and his cousins to Christmas Mass one year at midnight as though it was a yearly event for them, not telling him that it was a wonderful, but one-time deal, a night where all the parents needed a baby-sitter for the mess of kids so they all could go to a party at the country club and get tipsy on bourbon saturated egg-nog and Cold Duck. He had never seen her in, nor heard her speak of, church again, but he’d tried to recreate that evening a number of times since, never being able to sense the same magic he had that time when he was nine.
Aunt Maura had been a somewhat peripheral presence in Declan’s and Thomas’s lives growing up, the dark, flashing beauty who was married to a great-uncle who’d met her during the war and convinced her to come to the States after it was over. They never had children and lived a quiet life in the upstate where the rolling, green terrain reminded her of home. After he died, she had stayed in their home, tending to their huge dogs, which waxed and waned in numbers over the years, and slowly working through the substantial sum he’d left behind. She walked every day, miles and miles, the dogs galloping around her along the way for so long that she became known as “The Walking Dog Lady” to the community.
She had approached Decland and Thomas a few months before the trip at a family gathering for the celebration of some cousin’s graduation.They reminded her of her husband, tall and quiet, but with sly smiles that turned into grins if someone mentioned shenanigans they could get into. The two of them had sneaked off that night years before at Christmas Mass and, when she found them in the Priest’s office, nibbling on sacrament and looking through his desk, they stared up in fear at her, the light of a lamp reflecting in her eyes, black as night in the dark of the doorway and hall behind her. She hadn’t had to say a word before they gulped, trying to eliminate the evidence already in their mouths, and slammed the drawers shut. As they stood, she put her finger to her lips to quiet them and stepped to the side to allow then to pass into the hall, back to the sanctuary where they sat obediently for the service, fascinated by the rituals, but also still frozen by fear at the memory of that look she had first given them. The wafer residue dried in their mouths as two of their confirmed cousins took communion while their slack Baptist upbringing raised questions they wouldn’t ask that night. After the service, they drank greedily from the fountain on the route to the parking lot, the cold water waking them even more than the thought of Christmas morning in spite of the time.
Over the years, they giggled in remembrance and laughed when they told the story over and over to friends, both recounting how they had expected a slap to the back of their heads as they slinked past her. She hadn’t said a word in remonstration though, that night or ever but for a “You owe me one, boys,” delivered right before their parents picked them up in the early hours for a boozy ride home. They never forgot that even though she had never mentioned it over the years when they saw her, but neither was surprised when she spoke to them in the corner of the living room the night of the family gathering.
“I don’t have long, boys. I can feel it. My man thought the world of both of you, even when you were little, and told me to ask you if I ever needed anything taken care of. All I want for you is to take me home and walk the earth with me for a while so I may share it with someone before I go. You won’t have to bring me back. I’ll make sure of that and the hotel will pay to be rid of me once I’m gone. Use what I have left to take care of the lads until they’ve passed and then do as you will with what’s left.”
They had looked at each other and confirmed neither had any doubt about what she was asking, though they both wondered if they could go through with it. It took two months to arrange the trip and time off work, during which she continued to walk the roads around her home with the dogs, visiting old friends she’d stopped seeing once her husband had passed, delivering jars of preserves and quilts she’d been making and accumulating over the years since, keeping her hands and mind busy, trying to push the grief to a spot she couldn’t see anymore,
After the trip home, the boys took turns tending to the place and the lads until the last one died a few years later. On their daily walks, the dogs would look for her, confused by her absence, sad expressions poking through their genial goofiness. They unlocked the place on weekends and let other family members pick through her things until the only things left were important to no one.
Declan did return to Ireland a few years later, avoiding the hotel and trying to keep a low profile in the area surrounding the village. When he visited her grave, he talked to her and introduced her to another flash of dark beauty who had come with him on the trip. He told her all the lads had missed her until their last days, but they’d been well taken care of. On their walks, someone had always asked about The Walking Dog Lady and inquired how she was doing. He would simply tell them she’d gone home to Ireland.
Before he left, he placed a coin on her headstone. It was silly, he thought, but it had been in his pocket when he’d been talking to the desk clerk the morning they had left her behind.. They had woken at 5:00 a.m. and puttered about in the adjoining room for thirty minutes before gathering the courage to knock gently and enter. Every other morning, she had knocked on the door at 5:15 to make sure they were up and ready to see her world, but she had taken a few extra moments the night before to hug them goodnight and kiss them on their cheeks. “You’re good boys,” she had said. “You’ll always be good boys to me, now.”
He had handled the coin nervously as he and the clerk were talking that morning, a talisman for assisting in the deception they were a part of with her and his heart hurt a little as he took it out of his pocket for the last time and centered it on her marker with a smile that broadened into a grin as he turned and walked away. He reached for his companion’s hand and they walked through the grass, the mist burning off as the sun rose, looking at the rolling hills emerging from the gloom into the light.
