Mercy of St Jude Read Free

with hurt, had fired back, “Fuck you, Mercedes.”
    So why now does she feel this strange compassion? Because Mercedes died a spinster? Because she never enjoyed the routine contentment of sharing her bed with someone who loved her, of finding a warm, wanted body next to hers in the black of night? At least Mercedes had made that decision herself.
    She hadn’t allowed Annie the choice. For that Annie would never forgive her.
    The cool June wind whips up off the waves, over the breakwater and onto Water Street. An empty chip bag flies up off the ground. It soars for a moment, then drops. Every now and then, a whiff of decaying seaweed, of dead fish perhaps, rushes up from the shore. Sadie Griffin is small against the wind, insignificant against the force of the ocean. Still, she moves forward, her path almost straight. Sadie barely notices the cold. Indignation keeps her warm.
    Goddamn Hanns. Frigging Lucinda. Fed up with the lot of them.
    Sadie’s hand catches at the thin scarf around her neck. The wind has loosened it so that one end has come free and is whipping about high in the air. She pulls it down, tucks it into her coat and forges onward.
    Door practically hit me on the arse she shut it so hard. Pity poor Derm, stuck with that one forever. And them two brothers, not a decent brain between the pair of them. To think they used to make fun of my Gerard. Well, look at them all now. Gerard showed them, he did. And that Annie. I knows all about her, I do. Too chicken to lift her head up in the parlour there. Couldn’t even look me in the eye. Thank God I got Gerard away from that little tramp. Imagine messing around with one of them Hanns. Hah! One Hann less now Mercedes bit the biscuit.
    Sadie looks up only when she passes the priest’s house.
    Lights off. Good, I didn’t forget. Wonder what Father will have to say tomorrow. Father James, now there’s a good one. Wouldn’t mind cleaning his house. Fine looking man. Fine arse on him, too. Nothing better than a priest.
    Sadie looks at her watch. She picks up speed, elbows bent, fists into the wind.
    Gerard be here soon. Home to his mother. Ah, Gerard. My Gerard.
    Gerry Griffin eases up on the accelerator. He turns off the highway and onto the road leading into St. Jude. He rolls down the window and listens, trying to distinguish the ocean from the noise of the engine and the wind flying past the car. Before he hears it, he sees it, the white tips dancing on a sea of black. It’s one of the few things he misses.
    He takes the first right up a street of middle-class houses, some well kept, others not, all in better shape than the one he grew up in. Two doors down from her house, he pulls over. He draws a long, deep breath. The instant he opens the car door he sees her. He pulls the door shut. She stands in the window, her face more clear to him than is possible at this distance, the fair skin framed by almost-black hair, shorter now but still thick, the distinct line of her nose that comes to a small sharp point above her lips, her mouth, soft and full. And her eyes. He has pictured her face every day for five years; always he stops at her eyes, one moment green and warm as late-summer grass, the next, so vulnerable, so wounded. Always he is left with that memory.
    She moves away from the window. He is about to open the door again when he realizes that his face is wet with tears. This is not how he wants her to see him.
    He drives on, down Main Street, past the Trade School, the town hall, the gas station. Near the centre of town is Burke’s store, where old Mona Burke started selling groceries to make ends meet after her husband failed to return from a fishing trip. Over the years, extensions, including a motel wing, were added haphazardly; little of the charm of the original red barn remains. Burke’s sells everything now, from groceries and fishing tackle to furniture and appliances. His mother shops there every day.
    He parks