Free This Magnificent Desolation by Cara Shores, Thomas O'Malley Page B

stone and wood rises, settles, and rises once more, as if they are aboard some great galleon tossed upon the sea. The wind sings in the eaves and skitters upon the roof, hurling rain or hail. Trees scrape the glass and tap the leaded panes as if to gain admittance.
    At times, Billy cries out in the night, and Duncan goes to his bedside and strokes his brow softly until he sinks into a deeper sleep, and then Duncan returns to a dark angle of the room, and waits and watches.
    A young novitiate walks the hallways, and as he makes his rounds—dimming lights, attending to a whimpering boy or girl, scolding perhaps another who refuses to sleep and is disturbing the others—he always stops by Billy’s bed, which is the closest to the doors and so isalways cast in a meager slant of light. And Duncan watches the silhouette of the novitiate as he stands over Billy, leans an ear to Billy’s face and then a hand tenderly upon his belly to make sure that Billy is breathing.
    When the novitiate is gone, Duncan sinks against the wall, pulls his blanket about his waist, and watches through the night, counting the bells until dawn. In this way he makes sure that nothing can touch Billy. He does this for nights, then weeks, losing sleep, and gradually he understands the helplessness that parents must feel when they come to the unacceptable yet undeniable realization that they cannot protect their children despite their best efforts. And that in the end, everything is in God’s hands. Perhaps some parents realize this at the moment of their child’s birth and immediately flee. The overwhelming reality of heartbreak and loss is simply too much to consider yet alone bear.
    Tonight Billy has been tossing in his sleep, calling out the names of people, doctors perhaps from St. Paul, or family and friends that he remembers. A nurse comes shortly after Vigil has begun and gives him a sedative. From his corner in the shadows, Duncan listens, and when Billy is calm and his breathing has deepened, Duncan makes his way to the bed. He must tell Billy something that he’s been putting off but that he’s known he would do ever since Father Toibin showed him his dead mother’s letters.
    For a moment he sits on the edge of the mattress and looks at him. I’m leaving, he whispers to Billy, who is now snoring slightly. The dim lamp flickers and casts a soft, silvery light along the edge of his pajamas. Duncan touches Billy’s shoulder and stares at the back of his head, his small, wrinkled cauliflower ears.
    I may be gone a while, but don’t worry, I’ll come back—I promise. Please tell Julie goodbye for me. And look after her until I get back.
    Duncan pauses, trying to think of something else to say. A pleasant heat pulses from the pipes; children sigh and turn contently intheir sleep. For a moment he considers crawling back into his bed. His head begins to nod and he closes his eyes, and then a hoarse, cotton-thick sobbing from beneath the blankets startles him awake.
    Duncan, please can I come?
Please?

Chapter 15
    There is a train depot on the plains of Thule: crumbling red brick, large cracked flagstones, mortar shunted with horsehair and wood shavings. The windows are glassless, boarded with knotted sheets of plywood. The wind moans across the plains, down from the north. In the distance, way up high, an eagle turns in long, slow circles. Nothing moves between the curled wire and pidgeoned posts. The tracks stretch in each direction for vast, indeterminate miles. Squinting, Duncan and Billy look to the left and then to the right. That trains still stop here, that a ticket agent waits or sleeps and dreams in an office here, seems such an oddity they cannot properly conceive of it, so when they see the man, bald-headed, shiny, stooped behind the ticket window, they are momentarily startled.
    Duncan asks him how often a passenger train comes through, and the old man lifts his implacable moonbeam of a