Margaret's Ark Read online

  MARGARET'S ARK

  Daniel G. Keohane

  * * *

  Published by Other Road Press

  Copyright 2011 Daniel G. Keohane

  Cover Design by Elderlemon Design

  This book is also available as a print edition from most major retailers.

  For additional titles and author information, please visit http://www.otherroadpress.com and Dan's website at http://www.dankeohane.com

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to others without the direct, written consent of the author. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thanks.

  The story contained herein, including names, characters and places, are works of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Acknowledgements & A Few Points to Ponder

  60

  59

  58

  57

  56

  55

  54

  53

  52

  51

  49

  47

  46

  45

  43

  41

  40

  39

  38

  32

  27

  26

  23

  18

  15

  14

  11

  10

  7

  6

  5

  4

  3

  2

  1

  0

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements & A Few Points to Ponder

  For my family – past, present and future, with love and gratitude.

  Every story begins with its author asking, “What if?” He or she may not ask the question outright, but boil the genesis of any tale down to its basic component and you get this question. Margaret’s Ark started this way. Years ago, friend and fellow writer Fran Bellerive and I picked a random word from the dictionary to write about: “Lavish.” My result was a short story with that title which was eventually published in a science fiction magazine. The novel you hold in your hands came about when I decided to learn more about the characters in the story, to find out what it would take for someone to give up everything and do what Noah did a few thousand years ago. In a purely strategic / theological sense, could I write a modern Great Flood tale without having a million of my fellow Christians write to me and say, “Hey, God said he wouldn’t do that again?”

  I think I pulled it off. If you read the tale that follows and disagree, then send a letter. But be nice about it. In the end, remember this novel is a work of fiction, an answer to a specific What If question.

  Note that the chapter headings in this book start out contiguous but on occasion jump ahead a bit. In case you're reading along and wondering if maybe I'd left whole chapters out: I didn't, promise.

  Finally, as I did a final edit on this novel (which has always been one of my favorites), I was reminded how strong a feeling of family is carried throughout. Not just for the characters, but myself. A lot of personal little bits thrown in to make it an homage in many ways to my extended family. A significant date throughout the story is June 8th because, aside from some logistical reasons in the plot, it’s also my birthday. Recently, however, the date has taken on a sadder tone with the passing of my cousin. Barbara Stanton Jones was one of those rare smiling, wonderful women of God whose love touched so many people, and whom I wish I’d gotten to know a little better over the years. To her, this novel is also dedicated.

  As always, I thank God for allowing me this chance to write, a gift I’ve so often taken for granted. Mom and Dad, for being proud even if I couldn’t hit a baseball or get a basket. Andrew, Amanda and Audrey for your excitement over my bizarre little pastime.

  Linda, for your love, and encouragement to get this book off the shelf and into readers’ hands.

  Fran and Janet who took their turns over the years with the editing pen after this book was written. John Craig, a man I’ve never met but without whom this book simply wouldn’t work – for explaining over a number of emails and detailed diagrams how an everyday person can build a sea-worthy ark with nothing but Home Depot supplies.

  Father Jim Calderella, Steve Dorato, Dr. Joseph DiFranza, Komal Patel, Al Ganksy, Brian Hopkins, Bruce Boston, Melissa Singer, and Dave Brosha (another person I did not know until I had a specific question, who became my eyes and ears in the Arctic Circle) for sharing expertise and advice over the course of writing this story. And George Andersen, who inadvertently pointed me to the scientific concept that allowed me to at least pretend I knew what I was talking about with one particular plot point.

  And as always, to all of my family, friends, coworkers and every reader who has taken the time to read my stuff.

  Enjoy the story.

  Danny Keohane

  MARGARET’S ARK

  60

  Margaret Carboneau was dreaming.

  The edges of the trees glowed where there should have been darkness, as if some massive light just winked off and cast an aura around everything it had touched. The world was silent. No car sounds from Route 101 two blocks to the east.

  Feeling the grass under her bare feet, knowing this was a dream, it had to be a dream, Margaret walked across her yard towards the back porch. Where her neighbor’s house once stood was now only woods. The stranger moving beside her was tall, clean-shaven, wearing dark jeans and a loose-fitting black shirt.

  No one spoke, but Margaret was not uncomfortable with the silence. Maybe this man had been in her dreams before. Though his expression and demeanor was that of an old friend, she did not recognize him.

  They reached the back steps. The stranger stopped and turned towards her.

  “You're dreaming,” he said. His voice was strong, breaking through the uncertainty in the air around her.

  Margaret put her hands into the pockets of her nightgown and looked at the ground. “I know,” she said, “but I didn’t think people in my dreams were supposed to know that.”

  The stranger smiled, laid a hand briefly on her shoulder, then put his hands into his own pants pockets. “My name is David,” he said, expression flattening to a neutral stare. Margaret found herself looking at him intensely, as if the loss of emotion on his face meant she should be attentive.

  Unspoken rules of dreams and nightmares.

  He said, “I am one of many sent by God Almighty, with a message. Pay close heed to what I have to tell you. What I and my brethren are saying at this moment will be remembered when you and the others awaken. This will not be the last time we speak.”

  The others , Margaret thought. These two words sent a wave of dread through her that she could not understand.

  David’s clothes shimmered deep blue, darkened again to black. “God loves you, Margaret Carboneau. He loves your daughters. He loves everyone - even those who deny or despise him.”

  Something tickled her ankles, like a thousand insects scurrying across her feet. She wanted to look down, kick or brush the feeling away. She could not. Margaret could do nothing but stare into the angel's face.

  “What you are being told,” he continued, “is spoken out of that love. You may not think so, not at first, but you must trust God’s perfect judgment.”

  “Judgment?” Her voice sounded weak, a nervous child afraid of words implying punishment. The tickling crept up her calves. Cold. Wet.

  Water.

  The bottom of her nightgown was heavy with the weight of it. Her feet were cold. She was cold. Again, David laid a hand on her shoulder.

  The chill faded, but the tickling continued.

  His voice grew in volume. “Let the Lord’s proclamation be spoken unto all mankind, in both words and actions. Let it be heard and acknowledged.”

  The water rose past her waist.

  “In sixty days,” the angel continued, “water will rise again over the world.”

  To her neck. Margaret wanted to raise herself on her toes, reach above the rising flood, wanted to scream. She could not.

  “Over those who have denied His love as well as those who have lived within it all their days.”

  Over her face, into her open mouth. Lungs filled. The world spun and spun and spun. The angel's voice remained clear.

  “God loves you, Margaret. He loves your people. And he wants to spare those willing to believe...”

  The paralysis ended. Margaret flailed, grabbing for the angel, for anything. With the darkness and the spinning, she couldn't tell which way was up. She opened her mouth to scream, but there was only water.

  “...who hear his warning and do what is required. Build your tribute to the Lord. I will show you how. Tell others about what we have said. Bring them into your fold, and He will spare them. Please, He begs you. Build it. Save your people.”

  Build what? Help me!

  “The ark.”

  Margaret awoke with a gasp. Sweat-soaked bed sheets clung like frightened children around her body. She kicked them away, tried to couch the dream from her lungs, but the water was gone. The dream was over.

  The bedroom was dark, silent save for the rhythmic hum of the overhead fan. She looked at the clock on the side table. Ten thirty-five. A renewed wave of fear washed over her. If she'd fallen asleep, into such a vivid dream, it could only have been for a
few minutes. The numbers of the clock switched to ten thirty-six.

  59

  She slowly worked the spatula under both eggs, slid it back out, then realized she'd forgotten to flip them over. When she did, the eggs sputtered anew in the butter. Margaret was tired.

  The dream. Usually when she woke from a nightmare she could roll over and let it fade into insignificance. Not this one. It was as if David the Angel had been talking to her in person, in the real world, not letting her discard their meeting as a dream.

  It was only a dream.

  “Mom, is my egg ready?” Katie sat at the kitchen table, gently tapping her fork against the table.

  Four-year-old Robin sat in the seat beside her, Mickey Mouse fork in her own hand and tapping it like her big sister. “Mom?” she said, as if Katie hadn't spoken, “Is my egg ready, yet?”

  Margaret flipped one each onto their respective plates beside the toast and said, “Yes and yes.” She put the plates onto the table. “Now eat up. We have to leave for church in a half hour and you still have to get dressed.”

  She dropped two more eggs into the pan for herself. Though Sunday offered some respite from the usual weekday crunch, the three of them had to scramble to make it to Mass on time, especially since Vince died. On school days, it was a race to get herself and the girl's dressed, drop Katie off next door at the Duddy's to wait for the bus and bring Robin to the early drop-off at the daycare which, thankfully, was housed in the elementary school. Being a full-time science teacher at the high school next door had its advantages. Margaret usually made it into class well before her first students arrived, a few spare minutes to organize lesson plans or last-minute grading. Today was Sunday. The only thing on the docket after church was Katie’s softball game at four o’clock. Time had lessened, at least for the girls, the pain these Sunday mornings brought to the family, Vince’s glaring absence between them in the pew. Katie still missed her dad, but her grief was concentrated in moments that gratefully showed themselves less and less, as life slowly filled in the gaps. Robin played along, but Margaret wondered how much of it was simple imitation of her sister. She’d been only two when it had happened. A year and a half was a long span for a girl that age.

  She flipped the eggs onto her own plate and sat at the table across from the girls. When she a child, the Catholic rule of not eating an hour before Communion was still in effect, at least in her house. Whether that regulation had ever been lifted, or modified to apply only to swimming she didn’t know. Margaret never took it seriously in her adult life. Robin squirmed enough in the pews without being hungry on top of it.

  “Eat up,” she said, noticing Katie's attention pulled further into the Sunday comics and away from her cooling breakfast.

  * * *

  Jack used to have a last name, Rory, or Lowry - something like that. Like everything else that came before, he could never be certain. That life had been taken away, ripped from his arms, replaced with this new existence of mental fog and occasional blades of pain. Not physical pain, though his stomach did have moments when it felt as if a hole opened inside him when he didn’t eat enough. The blades were memory, flashes of remembrance. They hurt to look at, like staring too long into the sun.

  Jack lay sideways on the cot. The pillow was so thin he had to curl his arm beneath it for support. The wall in front of him was blemished – stains and spit and other unnamable excretions Rick and his people – including Jack when his shift came around – worked unceasingly to erase but which had an existence beyond anything manageable, like memory, coming back again and again in spite of the scrubbing.

  He’d had a thought a moment ago, but it had flittered away like a kite loosed in the wind. Jack lay still, reaching mentally for the string and trying hard to hold it. Something about God. The face of God. The face of an angel.

  The angel in his dream. Faceless, glowing with light. Telling him something important. A message from God Himself, maybe. He stared at the wall, not seeing it, letting images race past like on a movie screen. Water. Ocean. No, not quite. A lot of water, though. Floods. The Flood? Like Noah.

  He was close, but the kite kept spinning out of reach. Jack laid his hand on a clean spot on the wall, hoping to grab it. The motion only served to bring him further into the waking world. It was lost.

  After a time, he rolled over and swung his legs off the bed. His blanket was bunched on the floor again. It never stayed on him very long when he slept. He reached down, saw significance in its curves and folds. Angel, he remembered again. Telling him something important. He wished he could remember. God is in the details, someone told him long ago, in that other life. A life which Jack understood with a rare bit of clarity he could never get back. He was too lost. Everyone was. That was the point of the dream. Everyone lost, doomed to.... something or other.

  The second floor was partitioned into two small rooms, one for men, one for women. His area was abuzz with the waking sounds of the night’s residents. Few people spoke, at least to each other. Grumblings, coughing out last night’s nicotine. One man in the far corner heaved and vomited behind his cot. Didn’t have a good night, that guy, he thought. These sounds served as morning’s wake-up call along with the smell and plate-clanking of breakfast downstairs. He followed a group of a half dozen men already merging with a larger group of women and young children in the outside hall. It was dark here, thick with body smells, lit by morning light through a window over the stairwell and a single, dust-caked bulb.

  Jack kept his gaze down, not wanting to be drawn into conversation. He had trouble keeping the threads of his life together, and things got worse when someone made him focus on whatever struck them as interesting. There was a second set of feet descending the steps beside him. Jeans, clean sneakers, a scarred black hand.

  “Sleep well?” the man asked. Jack looked up, ready to look away again if the other tried to make eye contact. It was a young face, midnight black and mapped with scars of some long-ago battle. Probably some accident, or a bad fight. He looked familiar, and seemed to know Jack enough to keep his gaze directed away, to the back of a bald man’s head in front of them. They stepped onto the ground floor landing where their procession joined the already-long line queued up for breakfast.

  “OK, I guess,” Jack finally said.

  The young man nodded.

  The bald guy turned around. His fleshy face folded in on itself, half-confused, half-irritated. He said, “You talking to me, Mister?”

  Jack shook his head, tilted his head to the right. “To my friend, here.”

  The fleshy head turned to... Michael, Jack remembered. The kid’s name is Michael... and snorted. Jack couldn’t tell what the sound meant, but was glad that the head turned back around and the man stepped up to close the gap in the line.

  Jack blinked. Was he supposed to have gotten up early today for table duty? Maybe it was tomorrow. Rick would have come up to get him if it was today. The center’s director was serving and chatting with the guests, his gray beard glistening in the steam rising from the metal food trays. Rick would let him know if it was his turn. Jack was hungry. He was pretty sure he’d eaten supper last night. Short term memory problems, someone explained once. Might have been Rick, or some doctor. Problems “retaining information” since...

  Jack shook off a sudden chill and waited his turn

  “Morning, Jack,” Rick said when he’d made it to the front of the line.

  Jack looked up. “Hi, Rick. Did I forget to...” He held the tray with one hand and waved the other out towards the floor.

  “Nope, you have dinner duty tonight.”

  Jack smiled. A couple of his yellow teeth had begun to blacken. Rick made a mental note to talk to him – again – about having them checked when Doctor Allen came around next week. “Good,” Jack said. “That’s good. I’ll be here. Just, well...”

  “I’ll remind you.”

  Jack couldn’t find Michael anywhere. Wait – there he was, waving him over to the far end of a table where two empty seats faced each other. Somehow, he already had his food. Rick waited until Jack turned back around before loading up his tray.

  “You all right, Jack?”