The Fourth Life of Sean Donoghue by Trish Hanan (children's books read aloud .txt) 📕

build a coffin if any of you want to help, but you should bring your children in to say goodbye and your wives too,” Sean suggested and they all nodded. He went out to his workshop and got the Peanja wood he had gathered for this occasion and began to build his third special coffin. Sean thought of the three people he had shared his life with and wondered how many he would before he got tired of building coffins. He put that thought out of his mind and concentrated on Claire, this was her time and he needed to think only of her.
They laid her in the graveyard that afternoon, it was summer and you couldn’t let a body lay around in the heat. Reverend Thomas did a nice service and many people came out to pay their respects, she had touched so many people. But at the grave site Sean could see speculation in some people’s eyes, after all, he was only fifty-eight and a man, he could still have twenty years in him. And many a widow in her fifties cast a lonely eye at the newly widower. His sons were appalled.
“Mom’s only been dead a day and you could have seen how Myrtle Green was looking at him, it’s disgusting,” Kalin declared as they gathered at the house. Bobby was equally appalled.
“Helen Vernon actually asked me if Dad was planning on waiting the whole year before he started seeing anyone, after all, he’s not getting any younger and at his age, the Church will over-look the year of mourning and let him get married faster,” he informed them. They all snorted.
“You don’t really think Dad would get married again do you?” Ryan asked; his face covered in doubt. Danny shook his head.
“Dad would never do that to Mom, never in a million years,” he said firmly. They all nodded.
“What about Carrie, should she be living here with Mom gone?” Zack asked. His brothers laughed; the first they had done all day. He looked confused.
“Carrie’s fey, Zack,” Ryan took pity on him.
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” he said. Their father walked over.
“Quick hide me; I think Myrtle Green is looking for me,” he said with panic in his voice and they put him in the middle. The woman in question walked in the room, looked around with a frown on her face and then walked out. Sean let out a big sigh.
“Your mother’s not even cold and the whole town is betting on who I’m marrying next,” Sean said and taking the drink from Kalin’s hand, took a big sip. The boys all frowned at him.
“You’re not thinking,” Bobby began. Sean looked at him with shock on his face.
“Good God, no,” he interrupted. “I’m going to spend the next twenty years playing with my grandchildren and crying because your mother’s not here to do it with me. I have no intentions of getting another wife, I’m still in love with the last one and she’s not replaceable.” The boys looked relieved. Sean grinned.
“I would have thought you boys would know me better than that,” he said and they all looked ashamed.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Bobby was the first to apologize. They all did and Sean hugged them.
“God, I miss her already and it’s only one day,” he whispered and they hugged him back.
They got rid of all the guests and the next day he got rid of them telling them they had to go back to their own lives and let him get back to his. They didn’t want to but he made them. Then Sally, Carrie and him went through Claries stuff and gave all her clothes to charity except for her old pink robe which he wanted to keep, it smelled like she did. Then they split up her jewelry amongst the granddaughters and Sean spent a few weeks sketching Claire. Drawing after drawing and of course he moved on to the boys when they were babies and as they got older. And the people of Donoghue Valley until his book was filled. He never wanted to forget any of them.
The boys began coming to dinner, one day a week one of them would bring their family and eat dinner with Sean and that was really lovely. The grandchildren came around to the workshop when they weren’t in school and helped him fiddle with things but he couldn’t figure out what to invent, he was all invented out. So he began to sit on the porch and watch the town with Sally, Bill and Carrie. And they played cards and games at night. It was fun but extremely lonely, especially at night when he didn’t have Claire to talk and laugh with and share his day with and listen to her day.
But a couple of years went by and he celebrated his sixtieth birthday with a big party and all of his friends and family came to the mansion. Henry Adams had died the previous years with all of the other members of the committee except for John Matthews who he heard was writing his autobiography and he wouldn’t come to the party because he still hated Sean’s guts.
“Ah, who cares, the lad’s probably lying in the book too,” Sean said and everyone laughed. Myrtle Green and all the other single fifties ladies hung around the dashing General all night but he stayed with his family who all glared at them so no one got the opportunity to ask him to dance.
“Look at him, he’s still got all of his hair,” Myrtle moaned to Joan Clark who nodded.
“And all of his teeth,” she snapped. “She’s been dead for two years now, how long is he going to grieve, we’re not getting any younger.” Another lady broke in.
“Do you think he can still, you know?” she asked timidly. All three stared longingly at the long, lean, muscular body and sighed.
“With a body like that you know he can,” Joan said firmly and they all agreed.
Annie heard the conversation and went to report back to her sisters, as she called her sisters-in-laws.
“Do you think that Dad still gets urges to, you know?” she asked them and they all giggled. She sighed. “I think it’s unfair of the boys to make their father stay unmarried when he could have a wife who can give him comfort at night. Mom’s gone and men have needs, we all know that. He must be so lonely in that big house all alone.” They all looked surprised but then they nodded.
“I never thought of that but you’re right, Annie, Dad is a man too,” Nancy said. They all looked over at Sean who was laughing at something Todd was saying. The four men Todd, young Sean, Sean and Lonnie were standing together, talking and laughing.
“Dad sure is handsome isn’t he, I hope Ryan looks that good when he’s sixty,” Melody said and they all nodded.
“Have you all met Jake the new man Dad hired to help Bill?” Jenny asked them. They all shook their heads. Jenny smiled, she loved being first with the news.
“He’s about forty and very handsome, not married and is living in the house because the room over the barn isn’t fit to live in. Everyone loves him and Bill is Dad’s age and not able to milk the cows like he used to,” she informed them smugly. They all rolled their eyes.
When the party was over, the help they hired cleaned up and then left. Sally and Bill went to their room and Carrie went to theirs. The new man Jake went to his room which was right next door to Sean’s.
Sean went to his room and sighed with relief, they were family and he loved them, but he wished once, he could turn sixty or seventy or some milestone birthday without a big party. They were so exhausting. He heard a noise behind him and smiled.
“You’re not too tired are you, Sean?” Jake asked as he wrapped his strong arms around him. Sean leaned back and laid his head on the younger man’s shoulders. At six feet five inches, Jake was three inches taller than he was.
“I’m never too tired for you, Jake,” he told him and Jake’s hand moved down to slip inside his pants.
“Well, look what I found,” Jake whispered and Sean laughed.
“I hope you know what to do with that now that you’ve woken it up,” he teased. Jake turned him around and bent his head to lick Sean’s neck sending shivers of delight up his spine.
“Oh, I can think of a few things,” he whispered and they moved to the bed.
After they undressed Jake admired the other man’s body.
“I swear if I didn’t know your were sixty, I’d swear you were much younger,” he said as his hands caressed his lover’s strong muscles. Sean trembled and he rolled over until he was on top. Lifting Jake’s legs to his shoulders he grinned down at him.
“I’m still young enough to give you what you love best, darling,” he said and they kissed.
They next morning at breakfast they were both sleepy-eyed but so was everyone else.
“That was a great party, Granddad,” Sally remarked as she served the pancakes. Sean winked at Jake.
“Yes it was, darling, it wore me out, I’m exhausted,” he declared and everyone nodded, they were all exhausted. Jake choked on his coffee and they all looked at him.
“It was hot and I took too big a swallow,” he explained. Sean lifted an eyebrow.
“You got to be careful what you swallow,” he teased and Jake flushed. Carrie looked at them suspiciously but then decided nothing was up and went back to her eggs.
The next thing Sean invented was an intercom system for the mansion so they didn’t have to shout from room to room. Zack immediately wanted to produce them in his toy factory so his Dad handed them over to him. They sold out like all of Sean’s inventions and everyone swore he was the smartest man on the planet.
“Where do you get the ideas for all of these things?” Kalin asked one night at dinner. Sean shrugged.
“I was just upstairs one day and Sally was downstairs yelling up at me and I thought wouldn’t it be nice if she could just talk to me like through a box or something like the telephone,” he told him. Sally grinned.
“I like that I was your inspiration, Granddad,” she beamed. Jenny smiled and patted her hand.
“I don’t know what Dad would do without you Sally, you and Carrie have been wonderful to him all these years,” she gushed. The two women beamed.
The next day Sally’s husband Bill was working in the basement when Toby the cat brought him a mouse that he had caught. The old man who was fifty-eight, two years younger than Sean bent down to pick it up.
“Hey kitty, caught another one have you?” he teased and the huge cat, a descent of the original Toby purred. Then Bill threw the mouse in the trash and felt a sharp pain in his right arm and gasped. He staggered to the work bench and sat down and died, sitting up. The cat rubbed against his legs and meowed and then raced upstairs. He found Sean sitting in his study