Chapter 2

I made myself a monster BLT for lunch using thick slices of home-made whole wheat bread that old Mrs. Olsson baked and sold on consignment at Cho’s Market, thick sliced, apple wood smoked bacon that Mr. Svensson made and sold on consignment, also at Cho’s; baby leaf lettuce, and green house grown, ruby red tomatoes, again from Cho’s; topped with my own home-made seasoned mayonnaise.

I was still feeling the hangover headache, so I made fresh squeezed lemonade to drink with my lunch. I told myself I wasn’t a drunk if I could wait until after dinner for my first Jameson’s of the day.

I suppose I need to talk about whiskey for a moment. Most people in America see the bottle of Bushmills come out when the barkeep makes them an Irish coffee, and they think that is the “authentic” or the only Irish whiskey. Not true! Bushmills happens to be a rather unremarkable whiskey that doesn’t get in the way of the other flavors in an Irish coffee. It’s sort of like a blended Canadian. The whiskey smells like alcohol and burns going down. It doesn’t have complex flavors like peat or smoke that you find in fine Scotch and Irish whiskey.

Jameson’s is an Irish whiskey that Scotch drinkers appreciate for the peaty flavor.

Other less well known Irish whiskeys that are available only in the mother country include Teeling, The Pogues, Locke’s, West Cork, and The Tyrconnell, to name just a few. Like Scotch, you can find blended and Single Malt whiskeys. A Single Malt whiskey is produced at a single site, from malting the barley to distilling, to filling the barrels, to bottling when the batch is properly aged. Each single malt has a distinct taste produced by the local water, the ingredients, the roasting of the malt, the distilling method, the type of wood used in the barrels, whether the barrel has been used, and if so, what was previously aged in the barrel. Some whiskeys are aged in barrels used for sherry, some in bourbon barrels, and so on, depending on the flavors the Master Blender is trying to obtain. A blended whiskey maker obtains whiskeys from several small distilleries and blends them together to get a distinctive taste. Even a blended whiskey can become a prestige brand. For example, Chivas Regal is a blended, and in my opinion over-priced Scotch whiskey.

I drink Jameson’s because it has some complexity of flavors, but more important it is generally available in the US, without going to a specialty store in a big city and paying $100 or more a bottle.

The truth is, you can’t be a real whiskey gourmet and be the guy put on a pension for being a crazy drunk at the same time. Only really rich people can afford to buy beautifully crafted, small batch whiskey. The need for aging makes whiskey expensive. The maker has all his investment tied up in filled barrels until the batch has aged sufficiently. Ten years minimum, twelve years is better, and eighteen is getting up toward the best a batch is going to taste. How would you like to wait eighteen years to get paid for your work? Then there are the costs of storing and rotating all those barrels. My father used to turn barrels by hand for a distillery near our home. Now the barrels are turned by computer-controlled robots.

It’s early afternoon, and I haven’t had a drink all day. I’m not sure it has improved my mood, but my brain isn’t anesthetized or pickled. I’m making chocolate chip cookies with dark chocolate chunks. They are coming out of the oven just as Mary knocks on my door.

Sitting at the table on the porch, drinking home-made dark chocolate hot chocolate and eating dark chocolate chip cookies, Mary studies my face. She wiggles her nose at me and says, “I get the message. You are a DARK man. You know some kids would look at eating the cookies you worked so hard to make for me as punishment, don’t you?”

I laughed and said, “Oh, I suppose you eat Chef Boyardee.”

Mary giggled and said, “There’s a difference between being different because it’s good and just being different for the sake of being different. I suppose I don’t have a sophisticated pallet, but these are just different Mr. Doyle.”

“Duly noted, Miss Flynn,” I said.

“Will you show me your tower?” Mary asked.

“Yes, but the castle stairs are dangerous. You must promise to stay close to the wall, hold the handrail, and not play around,” I said in my most serious voice.

We climbed the stairs that went around the tower wall counter clockwise, so the predominate sword arm would be encumbered by the tower wall. There was no rail on the outside edge of the stair, so as we climbed higher, the drop seemed ever more precipitous.

We got to the tower-top room and I unbarred the door. It was dramatically dusty inside because I hadn’t been up here for over a year. Mary went into the room and I followed.

My house is built on the top of the only hill in the town of Southridge. From the leaded glass, diamond pane windows, it was possible to see the vast, dark pine forests and the large sparkling blue lake north of town. Mary’s antique Irish desk dominated the room.

Mary Flynn went straight to the desk and pulled out the drawers in a peculiar pattern. I heard a woody click, and a panel on the side of the desk popped open. Inside there was an envelope made of linen stationary paper. My name was written on the envelope in Mary Doyle’s flowing handwriting. Inside was a single sheet of Mary’s personalized stationery. The message was short.

I sank down in the solid oak desk chair. Mary Flynn sat on my lap and kissed my cheek. “It’s time, don’t you think, Mr. Doyle?” She said.

I smiled at her sweet young face and looked into her astonishingly deep emerald eyes. “I suppose it is, Miss Flynn,” I said.

I left the envelope and note on the desk, and I followed Mary Flynn down the castle stairs. We went to the kitchen and I warmed up the remaining hot chocolate. I poured us two new mugs, and we went back out to my porch.

“I think the stone-ground, whole wheat flour may be part of the problem with your cookies, Mr. Doyle. It just messes up the taste and the texture. They keep telling us it’s healthy, but I’m not a buyer at any price.” Mary said.

“How did you know what kind of flour I used?” I asked.

“The package is out, I have good eyes, and I know how to read!” Mary said, merrily.

I buried my head in my hands and laughed until tears were rolling down my cheeks.

“I like you this way,” Mary said.

I studied her face carefully. I wrinkled up my forehead and said, “Sometimes you say things adults don’t expect a ten-year-old to say. Should I do the normal adult thing, and ignore them, or should I take you more seriously and respond as if you understood and meant every word you said?”

“What do you think?” Mary countered.

“I think you are remarkably intelligent and have a plan you will only reveal a bit at a time, until I’m playing my part just the way you want.” I said.

“While that’s possible, you should know I’m not petty, malevolent, someone who enjoys manipulation, or desires a puppet,” Mary said.

“When you said, ‘I like you this way,’ I sensed you wanted to say something more, or at least something different,” I said.

Mary laughed and said, “A PhD in Literature is nothing, if not perceptive, and primed to see hidden meanings! The part I choked back was, “This is how I hope you are when we are married. You will want to marry me, you know, Mr. Doyle. Since I already want to be your wife and take care of you, it will be very easy for you to convince me to say ‘YES!’ so keep that in mind, for when I’m allegedly “old enough” to get married.”