Jolted by a quick surge of anger, at herself for not just denying the whole stupid pretense, but also at Deirdre’s flat, accusatory tone, Eileen set her fork down. “I didn’t ask her to do anything like that,” she said. “It’s of no interest to me to go to Dublin. Where did she even get that idea?”
“Oh, catch yourself, Eileen.” Deirdre’s lips pressed tight with rage, opened and closed again. “Where d’you think she got that idea? You swanning around with all your designer clothes and handing out expensive gifts as though they were penny toys.” Red splotches colored her cheeks now. Her hand holding the teacup shook. “All right, you’re a big deal in America, but did it ever occur to you for just one minute to tone it down a bit when you came back to Ireland? Did you give any thought at all to how people would see you? Giving away boots to a starry-eyed girl, boots that cost more money than she’s probably seen in a lifetime. Leading on a decent man like Kieran. No regard for any feelings other than your own. D’you ever think about anything, Eileen? Really think, I mean? Ach… I’m too disgusted.” She pushed her chair back from the table, fished in her handbag and threw down a few bills. “There. My treat. I’m one who has no need at all for your charity.”
WHEN KIERAN STOPPED in at Mrs. D’s to see Eileen, the older woman was on the phone, the receiver cradled between her head and shoulder as she painstakingly copied down information.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” she said. “Shorts, is it? No? Shartz… Wasn’t that what I just said? Mr. Shartz and he’s a friend of my daughter’s? Now is this Mr. Shartz I’m talking to? He’s what? Just a minute, I’ll have you talk to my…son.” One hand over the mouthpiece, she appealed to Kieran. “I can’t make head or tails of what he’s saying. I thought he said he was a Mr. Shartz, but now he’s saying Mr. Shartz is dead.”
Kieran took the phone. A man with an American accent identified himself as Frank Schwartz—he spelled the last name—told him that his father, who apparently was a friend of Eileen’s, had died of a sudden heart attack.
“The old guy was always talking about her,” Frank Schwartz said. “He thought the world of her. She lived in the next apartment, took real good care of him. Even did his shopping for him. I live on the East Coast so I wasn’t able to see him too often, but thank God he had Eileen. Brought him a beef brisket every week. It was a thing they had going, I guess. He passed away the day after she left. Eileen had left a message for him, said she’d been trying to call him, so I thought I’d better let her know.”
“Right,” Kieran said. “I’m sure she’d appreciate that.” He motioned to Mrs. D for the pen she’d been using, jotted down the number the man gave him, offered his condolences and said goodbye.
“Well…” Mrs. D, hands on her hips, was all agog. A plump little bird, beak open for the smallest scrap of enlightenment. “What was that all about?”
“A friend of Eileen’s passed away, it seems.”
“Ooh.” Mrs. D’s hand flew to her mouth. “The gentleman friend, d’you think?”
Kieran said nothing. It didn’t seem his role to set Mrs. D straight. Nor did he want another warning from Mrs. D about getting his hopes up, which any talk of a gentleman friend would almost certainly lead to. He accepted a coffee, listened as he drank it to ten minutes or so of speculation about what this Mr. Schwartz might be to Eileen, then left.
Eileen had said very little about her life in America, he mused as he walked back to the lodge, but he’d used his imagination to build a picture of what he thought it must be. The idea of her routinely buying beef brisket for an elderly neighbor didn’t fit in anywhere, and yet the funny thing was it didn’t surprise him, either.
AFTER DEIRDRE STORMED OUT of the bogland interpretative center, Eileen remained at the table to finish her tea and salad. For more than an hour she sat there quietly staring through the cafeteria’s picture window out to the bogs, which lay like a dark, slightly undulating blanket for as far as she could see.
Everything about her visit had gone horribly wrong. The fictional Eileen she’d dreamed up to compensate for her own dismal life had succeeded in creating this huge gulf between her and all the people who mattered most to her. God, how could she have been so stupid?
The damn turquoise jewelry for Deirdre that Tara now wore. All the other expensive gifts she’d lavished on people. A cashmere sweater she was saving for just the right moment to give to Kieran. Meaningless. The only gift they needed from her, the only gift she could afford to give them, was the one she least wanted to part with.
She found Tara in the lodge kitchen, sitting by the high chair absorbed in feeding the baby orange stuff from a jar. “Hiya,” Tara called cheerily when she saw Eileen in the doorway. “We haven’t quite got the hang of this, have we love?” she said, looking back at the gurgling baby.
Eileen pulled a chair up to the table and sat. Tara, she noticed, was wearing the boots, the legs of her jeans neatly tucked in. For a moment, she heard herself offering all the other designer stuff in the suitcases—hell, the suitcases themselves, she didn’t care. Ironic wasn’t it, that when Kieran kissed her she’d been wearing her mother’s old coat.
“Deirdre’s around somewhere,” Tara said as she scraped a trail of sloshover from the baby’s chin. Ducking her head toward Eileen as though about to share a confidence, she whispered, “She slammed in here about twenty minutes ago in a terrible mood. I think it’s the change. Daddy’s off on some errand or other. They’ll both be back soon though to get dinner underway.”
Eileen nodded absently. She’d caught a whiff of meat roasting in the oven, registered the pan of peeled potatoes simmering on the stove, all of it background to the activity of her brain as she planned how she would do this. Kieran and her mother, she’d tell each of them alone. Her mother because reality would come as the most crushing blow, and Kieran…just because.
Deirdre appeared at the doorway in that instant, saw Eileen and turned to leave. Eileen called her back. When her sister didn’t reappear, Eileen got up, and tracked her down in the dining room, slamming down silverware.
“I need to talk to you,” Eileen said.
“I’ve nothing to say to you that hasn’t been said,” Deirdre snapped.
“Well, I’ve plenty that hasn’t been said.” Eileen took her by the arm and brought her, stiff and resisting, back to the kitchen. “Sit,” she ordered.
Tara, standing over the high chair now, wiping splatters of orange off the baby’s face, looked up and, evidently catching the tension, sat down again, waiting, her eyes fixed on Eileen, as though a movie were about to begin.
“Okay,” Eileen said. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to plunge right in. There is no high-powered, successful Eileen, she was a figment of my imagination—and a little of my mother’s, too. At first, I just wanted everyone to know I was okay. Then, I don’t know, the story took on a life of its own. None of it’s true though.”
She stopped for a moment. Both women were watching her, transfixed. Only the baby, banging her spoon on the plastic tray, broke the silence in the room.
“Deirdre.” She addressed her sister. “You called me the successful one. Let me tell you what I see when I look at you. You’re a responsible, giving woman who people know they can always depend on. You didn’t have children of your own—biological children that is—but you practically raised Tara and no grandmother could love a baby more than you love Stella. And the volunteer work you do is truly impressive. I admire you, Deirdre, if that means anything at all.”
Deirdre said nothing, but her face had softened a little.
“And Tara. You want to go to America. You want to leave the people you love, to uproot your little family, break your father’s heart and go off to a country you think will offer you more than you have right here. Well, let me tell you something. You already have everything you need and I’m not just talking about Ireland. It’s in here, Tara.” She stabbed at her chest. “Everything you need to make you happy and fu
lfilled is right inside you. You can chase the dream of happiness forever, but it will always elude you until you realize it’s not something external. Those boots will never make you happy, Tara, because outside stuff can’t do it. Only you can make you happy.”
KIERAN WAS STILL THINKING about Eileen and her mystery neighbor and how she’d take the news of his death when he walked into the lodge and heard her voice from the kitchen, loud enough to recognize but not to make out what she was saying. Smiling in anticipation of seeing her, simultaneously registering the smell of dinner already cooking—thank God for Deirdre—he started for the kitchen.
The tableau he saw inside burned into his brain. Tara sat at one end of the big center table, Stella asleep on her shoulder. Next to her, Deirdre, arms folded across her chest, the way he always thought of her. Both were listening so intently to Eileen, seated in a chair at one end, that neither seemed aware of him standing there. If Eileen, with her back to him, had any clue that she now had another listener, she gave no sign of it.
“…and I could take you to meet Irish people in America, Tara, who will tell you they never should’ve come to the States in the first place and if they could just get back to Ireland, they’d be happy.”
“You know what though?” Elbows on the table, she was peering into Tara’s face. “They wouldn’t be happy back in Ireland, either, because they’re looking for something outside of themselves to make them happy, so they’re never going to find what it is they need.”
Tara, frowning now as she patted the back of the sleeping baby, shook her head. “I understand what you’re saying, Eileen, but there are practical realities to consider. We could make so much more money in the States.”
“For what?” Eileen demanded. “A bigger car? Better clothes?” She shook her head. “Stuff. In the end, it means nothing.”
“As I recall, no one had to twist your arm to make you leave,” Dierdre said. “It was you who wanted it.”
“I know that Deirdre, but I’ve spent the past twenty-five years regretting what I did. I want,” she addressed Tara, “what you have now. A home, a family, a man who loves me.”
In the doorway, Kieran stood rooted to the spot. Around the table, the women had fallen into silence as if retreating into themselves.
Tara glanced up then and saw him. Eileen, following Tara’s gaze, turned her head, saw him too and rose from the table.
“Well,” she said to the other women. “There you have it. Eileen’s Not So Grand Adventure.”
Kieran caught her arm as she tried to move past him.
“No, Kieran.” Head down, she pulled away. “I don’t know how much of it you caught, probably enough though. I’d intended to tell you when we were alone but—”
“Come on.” His arm around her, he glanced over his shoulder to see Deirdre checking the roast in the oven. She closed the door, straightened and made a shooing gesture with her fingers. In his office off the hallway, he sat Eileen on the small leather couch, where in quiet moments he’d sometimes have a quick snooze. Excusing himself, he poured a couple of sherries from the decanter in the lounge and returned to her. “Drink it down, you’ll feel better.”
She took the glass from him. “How much did you hear?”
“When I came in, you were—”
“Well let me cut to the chase.” She took a sip of the sherry. “It’s a very American habit that, getting right to the point. Well, here it is. I’m a big phony. A fraud.”
“How’s that?”
A flicker of irritation crossed her face. “Oh, jeez, Kieran. Do you want me to spell it out for you?”
“You haven’t an important glamorous job, is that what you mean?”
“That’s part of it.”
“And the gentleman friend, you’ve already told me, doesn’t exist, so what else is there?”
“I’m just not…not what everyone thinks I am.”
“Eileen.” He set his glass down and took her hand. “You gave a good talk out there to Tara and Deirdre, all that advice about the stuff inside being what’s important, but my guess is you’re not entirely convinced yourself.”
Eileen leaned her head back against the couch, closed her eyes. “It all seemed like such a big deal and now it’s out and…I don’t know, I just feel kind of pitiful.”
“The only pitiful thing is that you were too proud or—”
“Proud.” She smiled. “Like I had so much to be proud of. Pride, schmide, Mr. Schwartz is always saying.”
“Eileen.” Kieran swallowed. “There was a call today. Mr. Schwartz died. The day after you left. His son called to tell you.”
CHAPTER NINE
DAYS PASSED before Eileen could even accept the news and more still before she could think about Mr. Schwartz without crying uncontrollably. Even after she’d called his son, heard him go on at length about what she’d meant to the old man, she just couldn’t get beyond the idea that he was dead. The idea of going back to L.A., of unlocking her door and not finding a note under it, or a grocery coupon for brisket. Or knocking on his door and hearing the shuffle of his feet. Even thinking about the turtle, asleep in its dog basket reduced her to tears. The week before she was supposed to leave, she’d called Brandi the girl boss to say she’d be taking another two weeks off. Brandi hadn’t been pleased, but Eileen didn’t care. At the end of the first week, she’d called Brandi to say she wouldn’t be coming back. She’d been looking for a job when she’d found that one. There’d be others.
Her mother had taken to walking around mumbling to herself. The Oscar parties, the jetting off to Mexico and Hawaii. All those lovely clothes. And the gentleman friend? Maybe it was just a lover’s tiff that would all blow over in time, she wondered aloud.
Tara hadn’t entirely given up the idea of America, but she’d conceded that perhaps now, with the baby so young, was not the time and that Eileen’s visit, coming when it did, may have been meant to convey that. So, in that sense, the synchronicity was right on target. And although Deirdre hadn’t initiated any sisterly, heart-to-heart talks, the other day she’d been wearing the turquoise brooch on the collar of her good wool jacket.
Eileen took long, long walks across the boglands, along the beach, through miles and miles of Irish countryside. Walks meant to straighten out the years of jumble and confusion accumulated in her head. Often Kieran walked with her.
“What happened with us?” she asked one day.
“Your version or mine?”
She grinned. “Let’s hear yours first.”
“You were as intent on going to America as Tara has been,” he said. “I knew that, as well as the fact I’d no interest in going there myself. As much as I loved you, and I did, I’d started to get a bit tired of hearing about it. We were fighting all the time. Libby was calm and perfectly happy with Ireland. One day I kissed her and the rest as they say is history.”
“My version is that I wouldn’t have gone to America in the first place if I hadn’t caught you kissing Libby.”
He laughed. “And I wouldn’t have been kissing Libby if you hadn’t made my life miserable about going to America.”
“And round and round and round,” she said. “Did you love her?”
“Of course.” They walked along in silence for a bit and then he said. “It’s funny the way things turn out. The times when I found myself wishing that things had turned out differently with us, but I’d look at Tara and now Stella and…well, I couldn’t even imagine my life without them.”
“D’you think there’s some grand plan?” she asked. “Everything just happens the way it’s going to, no matter how you plot and plan and fight against things?”
“I think it’s highly possible.”
“I’m thinking of not going back to America,” she said.
“I think that’s a very good idea.”
She smiled. “Yeah?”
“Of course, you’ll need money to pay off your fancy things, so I thought maybe you’d like to work with me in the lodge.”
>
“With you, or for you?”
“Well, I suppose I could hire you on as a chambermaid, but I thought you might like to be the landlady. Mrs. O’Malley has a nice sound to it, don’t you think?”
“Is that a proposal?”
“It is.”
“Your streak of romanticism is overwhelming.”
He put his arm around her. “Shall I get down on one knee?”
“No. I’m happy with plain and unadorned. Just as long as I know it’s real.”
“I’ve always loved you. I don’t mean to say I didn’t love Libby, I did. But I never stopped loving you. I realized it the minute I saw you at the airport. Blond hair and all. I think we were always meant to be…we just took a roundabout way.”
“Mr. Schwartz’s son rang me this morning.” She swallowed. “He, the father, left me some money. There’s quite a lot. I wanted to make sure you weren’t marrying me because of it.”
He looked at her. “Is that a fact? About the money, I mean.”
“Yeah.” She bit her lip because she could feel the tears starting again. “I didn’t mean to sound flippant about it, you marrying me because of it. I just…all these years and I had no idea. I’d pay for his groceries because I thought he was struggling, tell him it was a present. I never expected anything out of it, of course. I just did it because I wanted to. Now this whole money thing. I feel, I don’t know, that I don’t deserve it.”
“You made him happy, Eilie,” Kieran said. “That’s exactly what his son told me. ‘She made him happy.’ What more can any one of us do for another than that?”
He took her hand then and they tramped along, through verdant grass and icy spots where snow still lingered beneath tree branches, the sun on their faces, the wind at their backs.
“What was that thing we used to say to each other?” he asked. “About salmon walking in the streets?”
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