As much as it hurt, turning away from the priesthood had been the right decision. He did good work on the street, helping keep kids out of the gangs and giving hope to the downtrodden . . . but he wanted a family. He even envied Mick and Ruby Malone. They were so crooked they couldn’t walk a straight line if a pot of gold was waiting at the end of it, but they loved each other. They were never lonely.
God would send him the right woman when it was time. For now, he would seek out Mrs. Kellerman to decline her offer, and then he would forget about her.
5
The greatest disappointment of Gwen’s eight-year marriage was that she failed to conceive a child, but she found solace in the company of the children who made their home at Blackstone College. President Matthews’s two boys often climbed the fence separating their yards to play in Gwen’s garden. Then there was little Mimi, whose mother worked in the accounting office. Mimi was eight and suffered a number of physical disabilities that prevented her from attending a normal school, so she spent her days on campus. She was a favorite among the students, who coddled and protected her.
This morning Gwen sat with all three children at her backyard koi pond, the centerpiece of her garden. A physics professor had installed the pump, and a group of students had helped her stack rocks to create levels within the pond so that water splashed down the tiers and attracted birds and butterflies. There was plenty of room to perch on the flat rocks surrounding the pond, and the children loved to feed the fish.
Naturally, the boys started pelting the food at the fish, but what could one expect from six- and eight-year-old boys?
“Be gentle,” Mimi said from where she sat on a chair next to the pond. The iron braces on her legs made it impossible for her to clamber over the rocks like the boys. Life wasn’t easy for Mimi, who already wore thick eyeglasses and depended on a rolling walker. Nevertheless, she lit up the entire campus with her bottomless good cheer, and Gwen had always been protective of her.
“This one is fat,” the older boy said as he dangled a bit of lettuce just above the surface of the water. “I’ll bet it’s pregnant with a baby.”
Gwen bit back a smile. “Koi don’t have babies. They lay eggs.”
Behind her glasses, Mimi’s brown eyes grew wide. “When is she going to lay eggs? Can I watch? Will you let me name the babies?”
Before Gwen could answer, the older boy started climbing the oak tree, reaching for a tiny plant that had taken root in one of the deep chinks in the tree bark.
“Leave it alone,” Gwen cautioned. “I don’t know how much longer that bromeliad can survive in that spot, and I want to protect it.”
“Why is it growing on a tree trunk instead of in the ground?” Mimi asked.
“The wind must have carried the seed there,” Gwen answered. “They can lie dormant for years before a bit of water and heat awakens them. Seeds are hardy little things, and I admire that.”
“I admire that too,” Mimi said, looking at the bromeliad in its precarious perch.
“Ahem.”
The man’s voice startled her, and Gwen shot to her feet. Good heavens, that lawyer from the Five Points was at the gate of the garden fence, watching them. How long had he been standing there?
“My pardon,” Mr. O’Neill said. “I knocked on the front door, but no one answered. I heard voices back here and followed.”
Her mouth went dry. He was here about that awful memoir. The suffocating fear of losing the college had been looming over her for days, and now he was here with the answer.
“Dare I hope your client accepted my offer?” she asked.
“I’m afraid not. Malone turned it down.”
She flinched and turned away. There would be no miraculous salvation for the college from writing a few bank checks. She braced a hand against the garden wall, gathering her thoughts. She had to try again. She had to try again now, because Uncle Oscar’s decision simply could not stand.
She turned back to the children still clustered around the koi pond. “Time for you to head back to your house,” she said to the boys, scooting them toward a low-hanging branch they used to climb over the fence separating their yards. She held the vine of wild jasmine aside so they wouldn’t crush the blooms and helped them over.
Mimi reached for her walker. “Do I have to go too?”
“Yes, sweetie. I’ll take you back to your mother.” She glanced at Mr. O’Neill. “Will you walk with me to campus? You and I need to speak privately.”
“I’m not sure what we have left to discuss,” he said. “My client was firm in his decision.”
She liked his voice. Gentle but firm and with a hint of an Irish accent. He wasn’t particularly handsome but still enormously attractive. His face was rugged, as though carved by an axe. His hair looked like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be light brown or blond, and his nose had been broken at least once, but none of it lessened his appeal. He looked strong, like a protector, and all women secretly liked that in a man.
She led him and Mimi down the brick path to the front of the house and then on the one-block walk to the campus. Mimi’s lumbering gait made for slow progress, but Mr. O’Neill seemed to enjoy craning his neck to admire the buildings and the natural beauty of campus. He even came inside the administration building when Gwen escorted Mimi to the office where her mother worked. The building’s arched hallways and wood paneling made it feel like an old-world castle, and she squinted once they emerged back into the sunlight.
“Have you ever been to Blackstone College?” she asked. He hadn’t, so she pointed out the various buildings and the fountain splashing in the center of the quadrangle.
“What is your role on campus?” he asked. “Do you teach?”
Gwen’s lifelong dream had been to become a professor here, but that was reserved for people with doctorates. She once contemplated enrolling at New York University to get her doctorate in botany but had balked at the prospect of living in downtown Manhattan, surrounded by towering skyscrapers, the noise, the traffic. Just . . . no. It wasn’t possible.
“My husband was the head of the biology department,” she said simply.
“Was?”
“He died two years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You chose to stay on campus?”
“Oh yes, I’ll never leave this place.” Her reply was instinctive. This college was her home, and she had never even considered leaving it. “I teach a class on botany each semester, but mostly I enjoy tending the gardens and looking after the students. They get dreadfully homesick, even though they’d die before admitting it, and I like mothering them.”
His gaze roamed across the ivy-covered buildings and manicured lawns. “This isn’t anything like where I went to college. It’s a good thing your family has money.”
She sent him an amused half smile. “I’m afraid this college is the only investment our family made that reliably loses money every year.”
“Maybe a little less money spent on fancy buildings would have been prudent.”
Like many people, Patrick O’Neill didn’t look beneath the trappings to see the miracles that were the true beating heart of this college.