Step On A Crack

Chapter 43

“SEAMUS, I’M BUSY. What is it?” I greeted my grandfather. Not the warmest of salutations, maybe, but I wasn’t filled with Christmas cheer right at that moment. Besides, conversation to my grandfather, even at seventy-four years old, is a form of combat. If you don’t put yourself on the offensive immediately, he will eat you alive.

“Well, a fine good evening to you as well, young Micheál,” Seamus said. I knew I was in for it when my Hibernian forebear reverted to the Gaelic form of my name. My grandfather didn’t just kiss the Blarney Stone, family legend had it. He bit off a chunk and swallowed it. Daily.

“And an especially fine way of conversing with the man currently taking care of your flock of goslings,” he finished.

Flock of goslings, I thought, rolling my eyes. My grand-father could make Malachy or Frank McCourt eat his tweed cap. He was the biggest, most blustery stage Irishman alive. He’d come to this country in the forties at the age of twelve. Sixty-some years had passed since he’d set foot on the “old sod,” as he called it, but if you didn’t know him better, at any given moment you’d think he’d just put up the donkey after cutting turf from the bog.

He was constantly coming in to check on his great-grandkids, though. Underneath the mile-thick crust of blarney, thank God, actually lay a heart of pure gold.

“Where’s Mary Catherine?” I said.

“Is that her name, now? We weren’t formally introduced. Why didn’t you tell me you were adopting another child?”

I knew it. The lethal innuendo just beneath the surface. If you looked closely, you could see that Seamus’s tongue was really the blade of a slicing machine.

“That’s a good one, old man,” I said. “You must have been saving that one up all afternoon. Mary Catherine happens to be the au pair.”

“Au pair. Is that whatcher callin’m these days?” my grandfather said. “Be careful, young Micheál. Eileen, your grandmother, caught me talking to an au pair once on a street corner one Sunday in Dublin. She broke three of me ribs with a hurling stick.”

“ Dublin?” I said. “That’s funny. I thought Grandma Eileen was from Queens.”

As he began to stammer out an explanation, I explained to him the letter from Maeve’s mother and Mary Catherine’s mysterious arrival the night before.

“You’re the authority on all things Irish,” I said. “What do you make of it?”

“I don’t like it,” he said. “This young girl could be after something. Keep track of the silverware.”

“Gee, thanks for the heads-up, you suspicious old coot,” I finally said. “And speaking of the goslings, I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to get out of here, but you tell them to get their homework out of the way and to start their jobs. Their duties. They’ll know what you’re talking about.”

“Does it have to do with that chart on the icebox in the kitchen?” my grandfather asked.

“Yes,” I said. “It does indeed.”

“Whose idea was that? You or Maeve?” my grandfather said suspiciously.

“Maeve,” I said. “She thought it would be good to give them something positive to do. Get their minds off everything else. Besides, they’re actually helping out. It’s amazing what twenty pairs of hands, even little ones, can get done.”

“It’s not a good idea,” my grandfather finally said brightly. “It’s a great one. No wonder Maeve came up with it.”

“You done now?” I said, half laughing. He loved Maeve as much as any of us.

“Any last insults before I hang up?” I said, conceding him the last word to get the call over with.

“A few,” Seamus said. “But I’ll be seeing you later. I might as well save them up.”