Wanted

Chapter 31

The news from home were surprisingly good. His parents, his two brothers and sister, all were in good health and were doing well. His oldest brother as expected had taken over the family business and gotten married to a 'lovely wife' who has given them three grandsons, adults already, men of upstanding character of whom they were as proud as of their own children, his father reported. His youngest sister got married too, to a 'good man' of course, a lawyer from Dublin, to whom he was grateful for having moved his family nearby, so they could remain close and see their grandchildren grow up. A boy and a girl, bright, intelligent young people still in their teens, that brought much delight to the family.

After so much time Jeremiah had imagined there to be at least some bad news but other than the passing of his beloved grandparents there was none. But of course, dying in one' sleep at the ripe old age of 94 would hardly qualify as bad news, even if the deaths happened so close one after the other. His grandfather it seemed had died of a broken heart, only days after the passing of his wife.

Without having been there in person Jeremiah knew that either his mother or one of his siblings would have made a joke about this at the old man's wake. Jeremiah had to smile. He was certain that one of them would have conjured up the picture of his grandmother standing in front of the heavenly gate at the top of a staircase made out of fluffy white clouds berating her husband for being late in front of an embarrassed looking Saint Peter.

Jeremiah couldn't help but think back to the image of his father, how they used to all be standing around him at the bottom of the stairs in the large foyer of their big house, as he was impatiently waiting for his wife, as he always did when they were meant to go out as a family together. With his monocle squeezed between his eye so that every so often he could read the pocket watch that he held in one hand, while the other was busy holding on to his black walking cane with the elegant brass handle, the gloves and his tall hat. How without fail, his frown and worried face relaxed when she appeared, and made way to just the faintest of smiles but a smile all the same.

"For your sake, mother I hope you go first, or else our father will be waiting for you at the gate of heaven with his pocket watch in hand," Jeremiah would have told his mother behind his father's back, had he been there, in reference to their devotion to each other and his father's inability to wait and his obsession with punctuality. She would have liked the joke. She had that kind of sense of humour, which his father did not share with her, however.

His father's letter was long, full of anecdotes and details, giving him an update on everything that happened in his absence, introducing every new member of the family, but not stopping there. He talked about what was happening politically and intellectually, developments that would change the course of history, and that no doubt were to entice Jeremiah to come back home. His father's letter felt as if he had been writing it for years.

Great was the joy when they had heard he was still alive, his father wrote. Even more delighted were they when they read about the fact that he had not given up on his vocation and taken on a young charge in need of aid, and that despite having lived through war and hardship Jeremiah had managed to hold on to his kind compassionate heart and willingness to help. So happy were they, that his mother, despite of her old age, was trying to convince him that they should travel across the sea to America for a visit. Not least because his younger brother, Elias who he always had been closest to, possibly because they were Irish Twins, was also living in America. 

Elias had been searching for Jeremiah ever since the war was over, but Jeremiah hadn't returned. The search for his brother had brought Elias all over America, his father told him, until he fell in love and married the daughter of a Mr Joshua Chamberlain, according to his father a scholar from Portland. Jeremiah wondered if this was the same Joshua Chamberlain, that he served under towards the end of the war. If so, he would not have been surprised that his brother had described him as a scholar and not a military man to his father who rejected the mere idea of war.