Jan Burke - Dear Irene

Steven Kincaid was apparently just feeling lonesome, and had no particular reason to call. I chatted with him for a moment, then covered the receiver and motioned to Frank. After a brief discussion, we ended up inviting Jack and Steven to join us for dinner. While we waited for Steven to make his way over, we fed the dogs and Cody. Jack had already won Bea over by the time Steven arrived. Bea wasn’t too old to appreciate Steven’s good looks, either, so we were happy campers when we headed out to Bernie’s All-Night Cafe.

It was just as we were finishing dinner that the trouble started. “Irene,” Bea said to me with a smile, “I have the loveliest place picked out for the wedding.”

Frank and I exchanged a look.

“Mom, Irene’s sister is already working on that.”

I tried not to laugh out loud as I added, “We’ll probably be picking something out ourselves when the time comes.”

The check arrived and we haggled over who would pay, Frank and I finally convincing everyone that we’d cover it this time. We piled back into the Volvo; I sat between Steven and Jack in the backseat.

Bea took up where she left off. “I’m sure your sister will adore this place. But you two need to set a date and set it now. I think June would be nice. Traditional, I suppose, but still – Irene, have you picked out your dress yet? We need to get going on invitations as well. And set up a florist, and a photographer, a caterer and – oh, of course, a minister.”

“Irene’s Catholic,” Frank said, the moment she stopped to draw a breath.

“What? Catholic? Really?”

“Really.”

“Oh, Frank.” The disappointment level would have better matched an announcement like “Irene’s an ax murderer and cannibal, as well as a polygamist, but by golly I love her anyway.” “Well,” she said, bucking up admirably, “we’re Episcopalian, Irene, and I don’t think you’ll find it too much of a change.”

We had just pulled up in the driveway. Jack took my hand and gave it a squeeze of silent support, or I don’t think I could have kept my mouth shut. Steven was looking extremely uncomfortable. I suppose it was Frank’s tone of voice that made everyone in the car suddenly snap to attention. It was quiet, but chilled.

“Irene, why don’t you and Jack and Steven take the dogs for a walk on the beach?”

I nodded, and we got out of the car. Jack and Steven let the dogs out of the backyard. Frank opened the front door for his mom, who hadn’t said another word, then he came over to where I stood. He put his arms around me and bent to my ear and whispered, “Be careful, you unrepentant papist, and don’t let yourself wander out of sight of Jack and Steven, okay?” He kissed my forehead and went inside.

The dogs were overjoyed at the prospect of a walk, leaping in circles around us as if they were on springs, bouncing their front and back ends. Their enthusiasm somehow buoyed my own spirits.

We walked along the shore, watching the dogs chase each other. It was a cloudy night, threatening rain. There wasn’t much wind, but the air was cold. The moon was up; its bright face broke through the clouds now and again, but the night was dark enough to make me heed Frank’s warning – I stuck close to Jack and Steven. Jack was on my left. Steven on my right, as we approached the pier. Each put an arm through one of mine, and we huddled together, listening to Jack tell a story about a job he once had picking pears.

Suddenly there was hollow “thump” to my right, and I turned to see blood pouring down Steven Kincaid’s face. He stared at me with a dazed look, reached toward his forehead, and collapsed onto the sand. I cried out, and Jack and I quickly knelt down next to him. He was breathing, but out cold. Blood flowed from a deep gash in his forehead, just above his right eye. The dogs started barking ferociously and charging toward the pier, where I saw a thin man running away.

I looked back to Steven, who was pale and motionless.

“Get Frank, Jack. Hurry. Tell him about the man on the pier.” As I spoke I took Steven’s head in my lap. I reached beneath my jacket and tore off a wide strip of my cotton blouse and used it to try – gently – to stop the bleeding on his head. Jack whistled for the dogs, who turned and came back. “I’m not leaving you here without them,” he said. The man who had been on the pier was nowhere in sight.

Jack saw Frank’s dog sniffing at something, and he bent over and gingerly picked it up. He pocketed it, commanding the dogs to stay, then he ran back to the house.

I sat shivering on the sand, holding the cloth to Steven’s head, listening to the dogs making small whimpers of concern. Frank’s dog licked my face, and I became aware of the fact that tears were coursing down my cheeks.

Now and then the moon would clear the clouds, and I would see Steven’s pale, blood-covered face. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. The cloth was soaked and still he bled.

I held back, or thought I held back, a sound of fear and sadness, but I may have made the sound after all, because I heard the dogs echo it. I begged my papist God not to let Steven Kincaid die.

I DON’T KNOW how much time had passed before I saw the dogs prick their ears forward. I looked up to see Frank and Jack running toward us. Probably only a few minutes had gone by, though it felt like hours. Frank knelt down next to me and felt for Steven’s pulse. “He’s still alive,” I managed to say, “but he hasn’t moved or made a sound. There’s a lot of blood.”

“Foreheads bleed easily,” Frank said softly, and reached over to lift my hand from the wound. The strip of blouse was soaked red, and as it pulled away, the awful gash below it looked worse to me than it had before. Frank had a first-aid kit with him. He moved Steven’s head from my lap onto a sort of pillow. I heard a sound above us, and saw Jack unfurling a blanket. He put it over Steven while Frank made a pressure bandage for the wound.

Before long, we heard sirens approaching. A beach patrol vehicle pulled up next to us, its floodlamp bathing us in bright light. The light only made me feel greater dismay as I looked into Steven’s pale, bloodstained face. I felt Frank taking me by the shoulders, gently moving me aside. The beach patrol had a stretcher; they took Steven away on it. I stood watching as they made their way to the pier, then met an ambulance; they transferred the stretcher to that vehicle and it drove off quickly, sirens wailing.

The police arrived on the scene as well, and we talked to them for a few minutes. We had little to tell them. I hadn’t been able to see the face of the man on the pier; Jack hadn’t seen the man at all. Frank carefully held out something to a member of a forensic sciences team, saying Jack had found it on the sand.

“Actually, your dog found it,” Jack said. Frank reached down and scratched his dog’s ears while the forensics man looked it over. It was a bloody rock, about four inches in diameter. Printed on one side, in small, cramped letters, were the words “Hyacinthus Must Fall.”

“It’s another one of the myths,” Jack said. “Hyacinthus was a handsome young man who was greatly loved by the god Apollo. One day, at a competition, Apollo threw a disk that accidentally struck Hyacinthus on the forehead.”

He acted like he didn’t want to say more.

“What happened to him?” Frank asked.

“He died,” I said quietly, taking up the story. “Apollo grieved for him. As Apollo wept, a flower bloomed in the place where the blood of Hyacinthus had soaked the ground.”

I stared down at the sand, red from Steven’s blood. Frank put an arm around my shoulders, and we turned and started back to the house. I couldn’t talk. I heard Jack whistling to the dogs, following us.