The Gift of a Charm Read online

  Dad … She would never see her beloved dad’s face again. It was like a nightmare, a terrible dream Holly wished she could wake up from. She curled up in the foetal position on her bed, and lay there for a very long time, feeling terribly alone. Why did it have to be him who’d died? Why couldn’t it have been…? The thought came unbidden, and Holly immediately felt guilty. They might be fighting a lot lately, but of course she wouldn’t wish her mother, Eileen, dead. She just wished this horrible day, this horrible time, could be over.

  Wiping her tear-stained face on the pillow, she focused her gaze on the window in front of her. Sunlight streamed into her bedroom, and she watched beams of light dance across the ceiling above her bed. She felt angry that the sun chose to show its face on such a day. It should be overcast, rainy, gloomy. It would be more appropriate if the weather matched her mood, appreciated what was happening in her life.

  Holly sat up at last and swung her feet over the side of her bed, finding her footing and walking to the window. She cast her eyes across the rear lawn of her family’s home. The tiny patch of grass was packed with mourners, and in the midst of all of it, she spotted her mother. Her heart softened a little as she saw the misery that was etched in every line of her mother’s face. There was no denying that this was hard on Eileen too. Even when they had realised it might be a possibility for some time. With the cancer and all.

  She knew that she should probably go down there and support her mom. If anything, she should go and give a hand to Sarah, a neighbour who had volunteered to help out in the kitchen today, and organise the crazy amount of food that people had brought. Casseroles and vegetable plates and baked goods … Holly had never understood why people thought that funerals or memorials were a time to eat; she had never been less hungry in her whole life.

  She was about to step away from the window and retreat back to her bed when her mother looked up towards her bedroom. Their eyes locked and a weak smile touched the corners of Eileen’s lips and she raised her hand slightly, as if encouraging Holly to come down and join the living. Holly didn’t understand how that one simple gesture allowed for so much pressure to build in her chest. She felt as if a vice had tightened around her heart. She knew she would have to face all those people, but she really didn’t want to. This sadness, this funeral, was bad enough, not to mention having to wonder about the private thoughts of the people around her.

  Eventually, Holly left her room and walked down the hallway that led to the stairs descending into the entry hall of their tiny house. She was well aware that her footsteps echoed on the bare wooden floors, and that it would be easy for anyone to tell that she was up and about. There would probably be people down there waiting for her, all wanting to talk and hug her and tell her how much Seamus had loved her.

  Seamus her dad. A man too young, too lively and too full of energy and ability to be lying in a coffin under six feet of earth. But it was true. She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose as if this effort would push the tears to the back of her eyes, but it didn’t. Two large drops of water spilled forth. She wiped them on her sleeve just as Sarah walked into the room.

  ‘Oh, Holly, I thought I heard you coming down.’

  Sarah spotted the teardrops on Holly’s face and her heart melted at the sight of such suffering.

  ‘Honey, come here, come here,’ she cooed as she encircled Holly in her arms. ‘There, there, don’t cry. I know it hurts, I know it hurts terribly. We are all going to miss him.’

  Holly nodded sorrowfully as she rested her head on Sarah’s shoulder. ‘Come on now. Let’s go and get something to eat. You must be hungry.’ Food. Sarah’s answer to everything. Holly smiled in spite of herself and shook her head. ‘I’m not really hungry.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ Sarah insisted. ‘I haven’t seen you eat all day. Oh, and I almost forgot, there is a package for you on the counter.’

  Holly looked up. ‘A package?’

  She had been getting the mail ahead of her mother, so as to weed through the condolence cards. It was fascinating to Holly the types of cards that came in. Wishing You Well, Sending Prayers … they were so stupid, and she could see why they upset her mother, but they just made Holly angry. She wanted to get a card that told the truth: Life Sucks, It’s Not Fair, or I Have No Idea What You Are Going Through But I Am Glad I’m Not You.

  Sarah shrugged and led the way through the hallway to the kitchen that ran parallel to the backyard. ‘Yes. It was delivered just a little while ago.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s not for my mom? Everything else has been for her.’

  ‘No, it’s definitely for you. Has your name on it. It doesn’t say Eileen O’Neill. It says Holly O’Neill.’

  Holly followed her into the kitchen and sat down at the polished Formica table in the breakfast nook. ‘Right there.’ Sarah pointed to a small package next to a bowl of fruit. ‘Came about an hour ago.’

  Holly reached forward and took the small package in her hands, turning it over and over.

  ‘Well? Aren’t you going to open it?’

  Holly shrugged a non-verbal answer like any sullen teenager, even though on the inside she was burning with curiosity, as well as some relief at being offered a temporary distraction from her otherwise terrible day.

  What could it be? Who was it from? she wondered, hoping that her anticipation wouldn’t show on her face. It felt wrong somehow.

  As the plain brown packaging paper was peeled away, a beautiful velvet lilac-coloured box adorned with a white satin ribbon revealed itself.

  ‘Oh, looks nice. What is it?’ asked Sarah, moving closer to the table with a plate of sandwiches she had prepared for Holly. She placed the plate on the table and pushed it towards her, but Holly ignored it.

  With trembling fingers, she untied the ribbon and lifted off the top of the box, wondering what it contained. And what’s more, who was it from?

  Then she sucked in her breath and gasped. ‘Oh my goodness. How pretty.’

  Inside the box was a silver bracelet made of delicate loops that sparkled beneath the kitchen lights. Holly lifted up the chain and examined it more closely. A single item dangled from the centre of the bracelet. A charm. It was a charm bracelet.

  ‘Well, isn’t that lovely?’ Sarah said, moving closer. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing to the charm.

  ‘It looks like … an hourglass,’ Holly replied finally. The tiny hourglass charm was made of silver and glass, with sand particles inside the glass.

  She turned her attention from the bracelet back to the box that had been discarded on the table. Looking inside the lid, she felt around under the cushion that the bracelet had rested upon but found no note, no receipt or explanation. Just … nothing.

  Right then her mother appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘I think we need more iced tea outside,’ she said. ‘Patsy Collins said that the jug is empty … What are you two doing?’ She turned her attention to Holly and Sarah, who were both still studying the bracelet. ‘What’s that?’

  Holly looked up at her mother, her eyes wide with fascination.

  ‘It’s a bracelet. A charm bracelet. It’s just arrived out of nowhere addressed to me,’ she said, holding up the piece of jewellery for Eileen to see.

  Forgetting about the iced tea, Eileen crossed the room to get a better look. ‘Isn’t that gorgeous! An hourglass … beautiful. Who is it from?’

  Holly shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’

  Her mother let out a chuckle. ‘Looks like someone has a secret admirer…’

  Colour flooded Holly’s cheeks as she considered the thought. Everyone knew that her father had passed away recently, and her classmates were well aware that she hadn’t been in school for the past week or so. However, when she thought about who might possibly have sent her the bracelet, it seemed unlikely that it could be anyone from there. Most of the boys she knew were as subtle as a battering ram, and what’s more she couldn’t imagine any of them picking out such a pretty piece of jewellery,
let alone taking the time to select a charm like an hourglass.

  Even Corey Mason, who had been following her around lately (and who definitely liked her), was the type of guy who was more interested in showing off his biceps than taking the time to figure out a thoughtful gift.

  Holly shrugged, awkward about the idea of discussing boys on the day of her father’s funeral. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said defensively, while inside her head her thoughts were racing.

  ‘You know, the hourglass … that’s a symbol of passing time,’ said Sarah after a beat. Her voice was gentle. ‘Maybe … maybe somebody wanted to help you realise that today is also about celebrating your father’s life, about realising that things are always moving forward, and life is for living.’

  ‘Sarah’s right,’ Eileen agreed, her voice cracking a little. ‘Your dad would have wanted you to be happy, to be whole. He loved you so much and cherished every second he spent with you. You know that, don’t you?’

  A lump in her throat, Holly stared at the hourglass, beginning to understand the significance. Days of sadness and uncombed hair, of her and her mom bumping into each other in the night because neither of them could sleep. Of mumbling in the morning as they avoided Dad’s favourite chair in the kitchen, eating separately in their own rooms. She and her mother would pass each other in the living room, again avoiding his chair, but mostly avoiding each other.

  A surge of optimism pulsed through her veins … Holly would miss her dad desperately. For ever. And Seamus would have known this, known how lonely and adrift she’d feel without him.

  Which was why she knew in her heart that the bracelet must have been arranged by her father, arranged before … everything, so that it would arrive at a time just when she needed it.

  She slipped the bracelet on; the weight felt good and solid, as if someone was firmly touching – holding even – her hand.

  Thank you, Dad, she told her father silently, knowing that she would treasure his final gift to her for the rest of her life.

  Chapter 3

  Greg Matthews tapped his fingers on his desk, nervous about what was about to happen, what he was about to do. He had been in the office since seven thirty that morning, and had been working through this onslaught of frantic energy, debating with himself, making sure he wasn’t going to regret it. It was now ten, time to get this done.

  It was the right decision, wasn’t it?

  He looked around his tiny cubicle. Even after eight years at Foster, Cummings and Tyler – a top Wall Street brokerage firm in Lower Manhattan – he still had barely enough room to get comfortable. His desk chair needed replacing; this he knew because of the pain that had lodged itself in his lower lumbar region about two years ago, a pain that he paid a masseuse dearly to get rid of, but still felt return after a few days of being back in the chair.

  The office was a grim building on Vesey Street, with grim lighting and this grim cubicle. Greg had always hated it, but enjoyed the money. He liked his clients, but usually got sidetracked into talking to them about a gallery opening or how their kids were doing, rather than trying to sell them the next hot commodity.

  He’d started out on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and had worked his way up to the cubicle he was in now. There was no denying that it brought him little joy, just a big bank account balance.

  ‘It’s now or never, Matthews,’ he said under his breath. ‘Time to make the call.’

  He poked his head up over his cubicle walls hesitantly, like a prairie dog hoping to go unnoticed by its prey. Looking straight ahead, he scanned across the sea of cubes, ignoring the noisy activity of his co-workers, into his boss’s office. He could see the stately figure of Dave Foster at his polished mahogany desk, like a king on his throne.

  Greg had known this day was coming for a long time. Recent events had brought it home that life was short and there was little time to waste. Now it was nearing Christmas. The end of one year, the beginning of another. He couldn’t face the thought of entering the New Year still sitting in this cube. He cringed at the idea of another ignored holiday season and regretted, for his family’s sake, that he hadn’t done it sooner.

  That’s not to say that he didn’t have a good life. He had been happy, blissfully happy, when he wasn’t inside these walls. The problem was that the time he spent outside the walls was limited. And with everything that was going on in his personal life at the moment, that just couldn’t continue.

  It wasn’t as if he was bad at his job. Over his eight years as a broker he had amassed plenty of money: money that had bought trips, a nice townhouse, expensive dinners, the whole shebang.

  But, frankly, he was burned out. His eyes were red at the end of the day from staring at the computer screen, his heartbeat accelerated from tracking all of his investments, for himself and his clients, and his free time was … non-existent. Depending on his trades he could be up and out at three to five a.m., and not be home till late at night. He knew it would have to be this way for at least another ten years if he were to have a career like his father’s; he had built his own stockbrokerage from scratch. But Greg had already made a tidy sum (and was on every fancy gala list and main event in the city as a result) and he found the job a fruitless, endless effort in the pursuit of money for clients who already had enough.

  Greg bit his lip. He just hoped people would understand, his dad especially. Unlike Jeff Matthews, Greg had grown to loathe standing in the pit, and most of his clients hated to hear from him anyway, the way the economy was going. No joy on his customers’ faces. More like panic, or disgust.

  Smiling gently, he thought of his mother; she would definitely be supportive about it, was always urging him to follow his dreams, and do something he was passionate about.

  What’s more, after nearly three years together, he and Karen could finally begin concentrating on what was important. The rest of their lives.

  Yes, Greg knew it was time for him to make a choice that he was sure would make him happy when he looked back and recounted his life.

  He shuffled some papers around, finally creating a neat pile. His stomach felt as if it was tied in a knot. Maybe he should have spoken to someone about it before today, just to make sure that he was doing the right thing.

  He shook his head. ‘No, it’s my life.’ And he thought of his mother once again.

  Cristina had been such an inspiration to him for as long as he could remember. And it wasn’t that he was a mama’s boy. Far from it. His mother always said that thirty-six years ago when she found out that she was having a baby she’d been hoping for a boy, because she could raise him to be a man. She had always been intent on teaching him to be strong, honourable and brave. ‘No matter what, never compromise on your morals or ideals,’ she would say. ‘Those things make you who you are.’

  He knew that she hadn’t wanted him to return to the firm after 9/11 and it wasn’t just that she was scared of the ‘what if?’ that had been on many people’s minds since that day. Rather, she had believed – correctly – that life was too short to spend it working in a cube. Nevertheless she had respected his choice to play the role of the young corporate maverick. Even when she knew about the hobby he had had since childhood that had turned into a full-blown passion of his.

  Photography.

  Greg loved New York as much as he loved anything, and had spent countless hours and days exploring this city, photographing everything – from day-to-day life in the boroughs to the magnificence of the Manhattan buildings that seemed to become one with the sky. He loved it all. Earlier this year he’d even sold an arty shot of the Flatiron Building to a downtown art gallery, something his mother had been intensely proud of, and a piece of his past that he considered a fierce accomplishment. It had given him a renewed sense of faith.

  Then the week before, the Ninth Precinct had let him ride with them as they made their rounds in Queens. Greg had put in the request months ago in the hope of capturing drama in the city at night through a lens.


  He was thrilled when they finally got back to him, and he had spent the entire night tagging along with the cops as they not only saved lives, but in some cases just put lives back on track.

  He had got some great shots of a relieved mother staring gratefully into the eyes of her three-year-old, who had just recovered from an asthma attack. Of a drunk teenager being pulled out of an elevator shaft he had tumbled into, and of an elderly man being pushed in a wheelchair to the local church because there was no heat in his apartment. It was part of a ‘People of the City’ portfolio he was working on. He had just finished a series on the construction downtown, focusing on St Paul’s Church and the work on the Freedom Tower and the other newer buildings at Ground Zero. While he always loved to photograph the cityscape, he felt he had overdosed a bit on the buildings recently, and had been looking forward to getting some faces in front of his lens again.

  That morning, walking by Zuccotti Park had made up his mind for good. He’d been wearing his suit and carrying his briefcase, and slowed down as he passed. There were people of all kinds just milling around talking with each other. It looked like a modern-day Rome. The businessman exchanging ideas with the woman with dreadlocks and a baby strapped to her chest. The student with bare feet in an intense debate with the concrete worker on his lunch break. Greg felt frustrated he didn’t have his camera. His fingers itched to adjust the lens and he felt like a junkie without a fix. The suit he was wearing suddenly felt heavy and the briefcase like a shackle, even though his camera equipment was ten times heavier. It was at that moment that he had felt complete clarification. He wanted to run back to his house, get into a pair of jeans, grab his photography gear and get back there, quickly, before it all went away.

  Sure, this was New York and there were plenty of photographers everywhere, but Greg knew he had talent, and what’s more he had passion. Passion that had led to his decision today. And while his new career might not be anything like as lucrative as being a broker, he was certain that it would pay tenfold in happiness.